


The Time Keeper

by Adrenalineshots, Jameena, ProcrastinatingSab



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: A day off that goes to hell, BAMF Dani Powell, BAMF Edrisa Tanaka, BAMF Gil Arroyo, BAMF JT Tarmel, BAMF Malcolm Bright, Blood and Gore, Gen, Hurt Malcolm Bright, Hurt/Comfort, bad language, bi-Dani, hurt Edrisa Tanaka, original characters death, team kicking ass
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:15:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 38,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27269320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adrenalineshots/pseuds/Adrenalineshots, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jameena/pseuds/Jameena, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProcrastinatingSab/pseuds/ProcrastinatingSab
Summary: The team has the day off, and each of them plans to spend it in the best possible way. The best plans of mice and men, however, often go awry. Especially when a group of dangerous armed men decides to invade the precinct, stopping at nothing to get what they want.
Comments: 36
Kudos: 48
Collections: Prodigal Son Big Bang 2020 - Friday Posts





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Full disclosure: despite what you might read from page one, there is no MCD in this story. There should be, because it was inspired by a TV episode where that happened, but I couldn’t bring myself to be that evil. The episode I’m talking about is the infamous ‘Sunday’ episode, from Stargate Atlantis. Those who have seen it, know what to expect from this.
> 
> Those who haven’t, let me tell you:  
> This is not one story, it’s actually five, a wild concept that, although far from new, was daunting enough to face. In the end, our Dream team can only hope that it worked and that you, reader, enjoy yourself!
> 
> Speaking of Dream team, let me tell you the reasons why this story might work… 
> 
> because ProcrastinatingSab took a gamble on me and graced this story with absolutely gorgeous art work and wonderful insights into the plot and characterization !
> 
> It works because Jameena is a wonder woman who can go through nearly 40k of jumbled thoughts and squeeze a readable tale out of it!
> 
> And it works because FOX created these delicious characters that we live to watch and play with!
> 
> To my team, it was an absolute delight and pleasure to work with you! My two angels that stayed with me until the absolute last minute, working hard as hell to get this work out in time. Because, truly, with a story called ‘The time keeper’ we couldn’t really run late!

[ ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27196786)

**_(click on the poster to see the rest of ProcrastinatingSab's amazing artwork!)_ **

**_10 AM_ **

Rain fell all over New York, like the city itself mourned the loss in her own way. The smell of wet earth filled the cold air, adding a bitter, bloody tang to everything.

A long row of white crosses, buried in the ground, marked the path a crowd gloomily followed. They tried to keep quiet, as if the sound of their voices would be enough to disturb the dead, showing respect for people they had never met. The hushed tones of multiple conversations, in the end, were loud enough to echo across the valley like buzzing bees.

A sea of dark umbrellas spread around the open graves, water cascading over their edges, threatening to turn each hole into a pool if the dead didn't hurry to take their rightful place.

Gil took a deep breath, lungs filling with the scent of wet earth, regretting it immediately as it filled his mouth with a foul taste of blood. He had spent so much of his life in cemeteries, paying his respects to loved ones, family, and far too many fine people working for or with him. This, however, felt different than the rest. This one was special. If he had any more tears to cry, he would.

Dani and JT stood by his side, staring blankly at the three black caskets, lined side by side. Water glided off the shiny surfaces, like it was trying to wash away the pain. JT was clenching his teeth, and Dani’s eyes were red and puffy, but other than that, their faces told nothing of what they were feeling inside. The lieutenant, however, knew well enough that their thoughts were currently mirroring his--that this was such a waste of good, young lives and how easily it could have been any of them inside those caskets.

A tall, bald man dressed in black, standing over the head of the hole, closed his umbrella, allowing the rain to wash over him. “Brothers,” he began, knowing the words by heart. “We are gathered here today to say our final goodbye to our beloved friends, tragically taken from us far too soon...”

  
  


**GIL-** **_38 hours before (8 PM)_ **

For a precinct that had been disturbingly too quiet and empty, there were now too many people, too much noise, fighting for attention in the same shrinking space. 

Now that everything was over, Gil wanted nothing more than to check on Malcolm. He was pretty sure the profiler wouldn’t be where he had left him hours before, and not seeing him anywhere was feeding the lieutenant’s anxiety full spoons of fear. 

He was, however, responsible for everyone inside that building, so Gil’s priority needed to be the many rather than the one, as much as that felt like a coarse rope constricting his heart, tighter and tighter for each minute that passed without knowing the kid’s location.

The team leader on the special forces unit was looking to him for guidance, and Gil was pretty sure that as soon as the ground phone line was reset, he would be getting a nasty call from the brass. That is, if they didn’t decide to show up in person to chew his ass.

Amongst the sea of faces, the lieutenant searched for the one he had lost track of in the middle of the commotion. Dani was on the other side of the precinct, looking more lost than Gil had ever seen her, like she had crawled her way through barbed wire and found herself on the wrong end. 

More concerning than the look in her eyes were the blood and tears marring her face. It wasn’t like the detective to display her emotions like that. The fact that she was doing it now spoke volumes about the level of distress they were all in. The pain she had gone through.

Before Gil could make his way to his detective, a procession of gurneys started to roll through. There was so much more damage than what Gil could’ve fathomed and the sight brought tears to his eyes. This should have never happened.

The first one was carrying Officer Reynolds, doing his best to impersonate a ghost under the bright red, thermal blanket, eyes closed and sunken into his ashen face.

Next came the two men Gil had shot, more subdued now that there were cuffs around their wrists.

From the corner of his eye, the lieutenant caught the special forces team discretely carrying a number of black body bags up the stairs, carefully arranging them one by one next to the far wall, away from most people’s eyes. Gil’s heart froze inside his chest. He counted five, but there were more coming up.

With the bags closed and sealed, there was no telling which were filled with his people and which were the attackers. He knew at least one contained a bright, young officer.

“You gotta keep a cool head, boss,” JT’s voice came out of nowhere, along with the hand that landed on his shoulder. “It looks bad...but they’re both tough as nails. They’re gonna make it.”

Confused, both by the man’s presence and his words, Gil looked at his detective. JT was dressed like he was ready to join the cast of Miami Vice, with his flashy Hawaiian green shirt barely hidden by the SWAT vest he was wearing. There was also a mysterious blue ribbon around the man’s wrist that had the words Ancient in it, but Gil thought that was a question best saved for later. What he really wanted to know was what the hell the whole team was doing inside the precinct during their mandatory time off, but felt the words die on his lips. Two more gurneys exited the elevator, and suddenly JT’s words made sense.

The first one carried Edrisa--or at least, someone with the same straight, black hair as hers. There wasn’t much he could see of the medical examiner, as her petite form was surrounded by medical equipment and bandages. What he could see, did not look good.

The second one solved the mystery of the missing profiler. Gil’s legs almost faltered as his brain processed what he was seeing. The kid looked like he had been put through a blender. Most of his clothing had been cut away and everywhere he looked, all Gil could see was bandages covered in bright, red blood. “Malcolm?”

There was no response. Not even a hint of one.

“Here,” one of the EMTs rushing beside the gurneys called out. “He was holding this in his hand,” he said, quickly tossing a plastic bag with a red label toward the solemn group.

Gil barely managed to catch it, the whole thing slippery and covered in rust. Took him longer than it should’ve to realize it wasn’t actually rust, just more dried blood. Before he could open his mouth and unleash the thousands of questions running through his mind, the medics were gone.

“What the hell is that?” JT asked, peering at the bag.

Gil raised the evidence bag in the air, catching the light of the ceiling lamps. Beneath the blood, he could see the glint of golden metal.

“A pocket watch.”

_UNFOLD ME AND BE AMAZED..._

[ ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27196786/chapters/66430495)

[ ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27196786/chapters/66430495)


	2. 49 hours before (9 AM)

**MALCOLM-** **_49 hours before (9 AM)_ ** ****

Malcolm's fingertips traced the wall to his left, using the solid surface to guide his way forward in the darkness. Even with the night goggles on, turning the whole word ghostly green, it was hard to see past the rubble and crates that filled the cathedral-like room.

He could hear the others searching the artificial streets created by stacks of merchandise, an abandoned city of boxes being conquered by an invading army. Shipments from all over the world lined the narrow walkways, but their contents were of little concern to the NYPD. There was time enough for that later.

Their sights were set on the man running the place, Mário Berganno, known Italian mob affiliate, who happened to be responsible for the confirmed deaths of five people in the past week and a suspect in the killing of at least thirty more in the past three years. A _very_ busy guy.

A very dangerous guy.

Which was why Malcolm had chosen to ignore Gil's _suggestion_ to wait in the car while the rest of the team joined the SWAT unit in search of their perp. He was, after all, a trained field agent, who had passed both his weapons _and_ hand-to-hand training modules with flying colors. It had been a while since he practiced either of those skills, but those things were like riding a bike--you never really unlearned them.

The iron bar that hit his wrist came out of nowhere. The joint exploded in a pain so sharp and intense that Malcolm was pretty sure something had broken. If he had been holding a weapon, it would have certainly fallen from his numb fingers.

As it was, he barely had time to dodge the blunt weapon as it came flying towards his face next. It hit his goggles, shattering plastic, glass, and his forehead in the same blow. The profiler hissed, dizzily taking a step back as he tried to pull the broken thing off his face, ignoring the blood coating his fingers.

He couldn't see much without the goggles, but he could take a wild guess on who was behind the iron bar. “Mário, wait...I just want to talk,” Malcolm let out, hoping that, even if the perp wasn't in the mood to listen to him, at least his team might hear his voice carry across the echoing chamber.

Mário's only response was to lunge for him again, this time making a grab for Malcolm's neck.

The profiler's arms never moved. Malcolm knew that he had to do something to defend himself, but both his arms seemed stuck to his sides like someone had super glued them to his suit. He was helpless to do anything at all as Mário grabbed him like a rag doll and turned him around, using him as a shield just as Dani turned the corner, weapon aimed at the perp.

“Let him go, NOW!” the detective ordered, loud and clear, her gun never wavering from the mobster's head.

“Drop it, or I'll snap his neck like a fucking twig!” Mário yelled back.

Malcolm watched the events play out like he was stuck underwater, everything moving slower than it should, frustrated with the knowledge that he could stop everything from happening if only he could move.

But he was frozen in place. 

Even if Mário's fingers weren't wrapped around his neck, slowly cutting off his air supply, Malcolm knew that his body was not obeying him, that his brain and his muscles were no longer on speaking terms.

He could do nothing but watch as Dani slowly lowered her weapon even as Mário pulled out one of his own and shot the detective right between her eyes.

Malcolm's breath caught in his chest, his thoughts grinding to a halt. “NO!”

Dani’s body dropped, a lifeless puppet whose strings had been suddenly cut. Not moving. Not breathing. 

“Dani!”

Malcolm struggled to escape Mario's grasp, but the man seemed impossibly strong, arms wrapping around the profiler like the body of a snake, squeezing, crushing him, stopping him from running to the fallen detective.

Boots pounded against the cement floor, announcing Gil's arrival even before they could spot him running from the other side. The lieutenant barely had time to register the dead woman on the floor and the hostage in Mário's hold before the perp fired again.

“Gil, look out!” Malcolm shouted, far too late.

He could only watch in horror as the bullet made impact, sending the older man flying backwards, blood exploding from his chest. Inside Malcolm's head, an insistent voice kept screaming at him all the flaws in logic that he was witnessing. Why had none of them been wearing a vest? Why had none of them fired at the perp? Where was JT? And why couldn't Malcolm just _fucking_ move?

He was screaming too, broken and raw, finally able to escape Mário's hold and race to the fallen lieutenant. “Gil...Gil, please, hang on,” he begged, tears running down his face, blurring the world into oblivion. “Please, please hang on.”

But Gil wasn't answering him. The man's brown eyes were fixed on some distant point on the ceiling, unseeing, uncaring. Silently accusing.

Malcolm pushed his hand against the gaping wound on the older man's chest, trying to stop the blood from flowing out, but it was like trying to put spilled milk back inside the carton. He looked between Gil's dead gaze to Dani's closed eyes, an ugly third eye open in the middle of her forehead.

This was all his fault. He had come chasing the perp without a gun, thinking that he could talk down a dangerous and vicious murderer. And now both Dani and Gil were dead. Because of him.

“I'm sorry... I'm so sorry...”

“You should be sorry,” Mário spoke to him for the first time. “Things don't always work out like you want.”

Malcolm looked up, finding a gun aimed at him this time around. “What?” he asked, confused. Now that he could see the man's face, Malcolm clearly remembered seeing him before. Dead. Dani had shot him. So why were she and Gil dead on the floor and the perp alive, aiming a gun at his head?

“You lose, Malcolm,” Mário announced, pulling the trigger.

Malcolm jumped up, chains rattling at the sides of his bed as he strained against their hold. His heart hammered against his breastbone, trying to burst its way out like some movie monster, making his ribs ache with the effort of keeping it contained.

He spat out his mouth guard, working the pain out of his jaw even as he hung his head down in defeat.

Just a dream.

It had all been nothing but a dream.

The real bust had happened two days before, the only casualties being Mário Berganno and ten goons who had been keeping him company when they decided to open fire on Gil's team and the SWAT unit. All of them were currently chilling in Edrisa's fridge, waiting to be autopsied. Gil was alive, and so was Dani, but it had been close enough to give everyone a scare.

Malcolm clicked open his wrist restraints, pushing his sweaty hair away from his face. His fingers brushed against the cut on his forehead, where the goggles had shattered under the iron bar. There was an ugly bruise on his right wrist, one that he was sure matched the goose egg on his head, his souvenirs from the encounter with the killer.

Every time he closed his eyes, the profiler could still see Dani's expression as she rounded the crates and found him practically hanging from Mário's grip, gun pressed against his temple.

They both knew that the man was surrounded, desperate and out of options. The frightened, cornered wild animal was always the most dangerous one. Mário was going to pull that trigger on Malcolm, and then he would likely use the gun on himself.

Dani hadn't hesitated. She hadn't even exchanged a glance with Malcolm to warn him. She just took her shot.

Malcolm had felt the grip around his neck increase for just a second before he and the perp went crashing backwards against the wall. The profiler scurried away from the other man's hold, but as he turned around, Malcolm could see that Mário was no longer a threat to anyone. Not with a bullet hole between his eyes.

Gil showing up at a run mere seconds later had just been bad timing. Adrenaline was still pumping and neither Dani nor Malcolm had truly registered that the danger was gone. Dani had just reacted and fired at the unannounced arrivals. Fortunately for all of them, Gil had, in fact, been wearing a vest.

Meeting the NYPD mandatory counselor had not been fun. Surprisingly enough, it hadn't been fun for any of the members of the team. In the end, they had all been forced to take some time off. Even JT, who hadn’t even been present for the whole thing.

Malcolm sat on the bed, looking at the mess of sheets he had twisted up during his night struggles. The wooden tiles were cold against his feet, a welcoming balm for the furnace he felt inside.

The last two days had been a chasm of boredom and unwanted thought running through his mind. Today, however, he had something to look forward to.

Edrisa had jumped at the opportunity to gather the team with her own brand of entertainment and had invited them all to her place for a party. A murder mystery party.

Malcolm had to confess that he had been intrigued by the concept and, knowing the medical examiner, he was sure it was going to be fun. So, in the spirit of being more 'normal', as Gabrielle had advised, the profiler had agreed to go.

The 'party', however, was only scheduled for the middle of the afternoon, which meant that he had some time to kill before heading to her place. In fact, he needed to text Edrisa to find _where_ her place actually was.

“Morning, Sunshine,” he called out, padding his way to the kitchen. Malcolm was pretty sure that there wasn't anything edible inside his fridge, so he grabbed a glass of water from the tap and called it breakfast. “Do you wanna stretch your wings for a bit, little girl?”

Inside her cage, the parakeet chirped in response, flapping her small wings to warm up. As soon as the door was open, she carefully stepped out and gave him a sideways glance.

“I don't have an apple slice for you today,” Malcolm confessed, knowing exactly what the bird was looking for. “Can I interest you in a piece of candy instead?” he offered, biting on a piece of licorice before holding out his hand. Sunshine flew to his thumb, neck extended as she tried to reach the food in his other hand.

Malcolm bit off a small corner with his teeth before laying it in the palm of his hand, within reach. The bird gave it a long sideways glance, judging the strange food from a distance before flying away, clearly not impressed.

“Mother would love to know that you eat healthier than I do, Sunshine,” Malcolm muttered, finishing the licorice himself.

After trying--and failing, because his wrist and head were too sore--to do some of his yoga routines, Malcolm looked around his empty apartment, trying to decide what to do next. He had the whole day to fill until it was time for Edrisa's party and absolutely no idea what to do with himself.

He was in the shower when his phone started ringing, the protective case banging against the vanity as the call vibrated itself to an end. Annoyed that he had missed a call, Malcolm rushed through his shower and reached a dripping hand toward the display. He pressed his thumb against the screen, only to be reminded, _again,_ that those things never worked with wet fingers.

When he saw Gil's name attached to the missed call, the profiler's hopes that this was about a case, flared to existence with a desperate vengeance. He hurried to return the man's call, throwing a towel over his head so his hair wouldn't drip all over the phone. He had learned the hard way that those things weren't as waterproof as they pretended to be. “Gil! What do we have? Is it a ritualistic triple murder? A serial killer? Nut case on a killing spree?”

There was a pause on the other side of the line. “Do you usually sit at home, waiting for people to be violently killed?” the lieutenant asked, a hint of amusement in his voice. “You do remember that we are ALL on mandatory leave, right?”

Malcolm looked at the foggy mirror in front of him. Even through the condensation, he could see the disappointment in his face. “I thought...never mind,” he replied, turning his back on his accusing double and walking back to his bed. He sat down, ignoring the way the sheets were soaking up the wetness from his skin. “Why did you call, then?”

“I...” Gil paused. “I was wondering if you wanted to come with me to a Knicks' game...tonight,” he rushed to say.

More than the request, it was the uneasiness slipping into the older man's voice that alerted Malcolm that this was not an ordinary, casual invitation. The profiler wasn't exactly a sports enthusiast, but then again, neither was Gil. The only games he ever watched on TV were back when Jackie had been alive.

Malcolm smiled, remembering how excited she would get whenever her team, the Knicks, won.

Working on a hunch, he looked through his phone, checking the date.

“One of the guys bought season tickets, but he can't go today, so he gave me the tickets...JT had a thing with his wife, or else I would have given them to him...I know you're not a fan...”

Tomorrow would have been Jackie’s birthday had she not passed away four years prior. Malcolm had been on the other side of the country at the time, missed her funeral by a whole week. After that, he hadn't been around Gil much when this time of the year came. He was sure it had never gotten any easier. “Of course I want to go,” he cut in, putting as much enthusiasm on the reply as he could get away with. “I love baseball!”

Another pause on the other side. Malcolm cringed, knowing that he had overreacted.

“Actually, it's basketball,” Gil corrected him matter of factly. “Pick you up at five.”

Only when he set the phone back down did Malcolm realize that he wasn't going to make it to Edrisa's party. He had promised her that he would be there. In fact, it had been the last thing he had told her before leaving the precinct two days ago.

He couldn’t just call her now and say that he had made other plans with Gil. It would be rude and very unfriendly of him. And the last thing that Malcolm wanted was to hurt Edrisa’s feelings.

On the other hand, he couldn’t exactly explain his reasons either, not without exposing Gil’s privacy and personal life. 

What he needed was a brilliant excuse -lie- that wouldn’t make her feel rejected and didn’t paint him as the bad guy. And he knew just the perfect one.

**EDRISA-** **_49 hours before (9 AM)_ ** ****

Edrisa opened her eyes, squinting at the sunlight coming in through the blinders. She was excited to start the day.

Lately, there weren't that many days when she could say the same. No matter how many times she changed the tune on her alarm clock, the medical examiner would always wake with a sense of dread filling her chest, a foul taste to her mouth, and the sickly sense of sweat clinging to her skin that spoke of a night filled with unpleasant dreams. She needed a good, upbeat tune to wake her in the morning, or else she would be in a dark mood for hours, biting the head off of anyone on her team clumsy and unlucky enough to provoke her.

Not today, though. Today she had the day all to herself and her guests.

Edrisa looked at the bright numbers on her phone. Half-past nine. Ten minutes before the time she had set to wake up. Which meant that she could enjoy her bed for a bit longer, melting into the soft cotton sheets that smelled of lemon and mint.

She had stayed up late the previous night, going through the last details for the party so that everything would be ready in time. That day was going to be awesome, she could just feel it!

A booming string of _Ooga-Chaka Ooga-Chaka, Ooga Ooga-Chaka_ filled her bedroom as 'Hooked on a Feeling' started blasting from her alarm clock. Edrisa giggled, figuring the random choice was the universe's way of saying that her feelings for the day were absolutely right.

Instead of turning the alarm off, she let the rest of the song play out, dancing on tiptoes as she moved to the bathroom.

After a quick shower and brushing her teeth, the medical examiner opened her kitchen window, letting the lukewarm sunlight in. Summer was still a few months away, but the mornings were no longer oppressed by the looming darkness of winter that seemed to cling for the entire day.

Her red koi fish flapped its long tail fin and reached out to the surface, blowing tiny air bubbles at her.

“Good morning, Chips! Do you want some breakfast?” Edrisa called out to the fish, even though she knew that it was merely a reaction to her opening the window. Fish were not the most interactive of pets, but Chips was the only kind of animal that she could bring herself to keep with her kind of crazy schedules and her tiny New York apartment. Although, since Fish had jumped to his death a few weeks back, she had meant to find a new companion to her poor, lonely Chips. 

“You're very right, Chips...breakfast _is_ the most important meal of the day,” she went on, fetching the tiny container with dehydrated, colorful flakes. “What do you say we make a nice cheese omelet and some chocolate milkshake?”

It was the most important...no one said it needed to be the most healthy.

“Hey, Chips, did you know that the CIA actually tried to assassinate Fidel with a chocolate milkshake, back in the sixties? Only, the assassin froze the poison pill and it broke and never worked...”

The sound of her mixer filled the kitchen, dark brown swirling around the glass container. In his bowl, Chips circled around, checking the view on the other side.

“Complete waste of good chocolate milkshake, if you ask me,” she went on, adding a good spoonful of vanilla ice cream to the mix. “Now, if it had been a banana milkshake...” she shuddered, remembering the taste of the one, unfortunate, time she had tried the nasty thing.

The petite woman sat down at her kitchen island, looking into the living room. In her head, she was trying to picture the best way to fit seven or eight people in the tiny space. Edrisa loved her house, it suited her needs and aesthetics perfectly, but she would be the first to admit that it wasn't the most roomy of apartments. Not that such a pesky detail would ever stop her from having fun.

Besides, how much room did one person need? Other than her room and the tiny closet space that was supposed to be a second bedroom but was currently being used as an office, there wasn't much to the apartment other than the multitasking kitchen/living room/foyer.

Now, if she moved the couch closer to the window, she might actually gain the few inches she needed to fit in the dead body.

Not a real one, of course, although she could’ve easily pulled that off...instead, for the sake of public health, she had rented one from a very expensive Halloween decorations store. It came with its own fake blood and rubber axe.

Edrisa figured Bright would appreciate the axe part.

Although, truly, it was the challenge of solving the murder that was going to be the most fun. She had worked hard on all the clues, making sure that they made sense and led to the right killer.

She had gone to one of those escape rooms with her team once. The clues had been far too obvious, the killer's motivation had been downright ridiculous, and they hadn't even invested in a realistic-looking body. Where was the incentive to solve the crime when the corpse looked like a crash test dummy? Ludicrous!

Hers was going to be so much better! It would take a true detective to figure out her clues and murder motive. In fact, her murder motive had been a pure stroke of genius, and Edrisa couldn't wait to see people struggle and wreck their brains trying to figure it out!

Then again, given how freakishly good Bright was at solving murders, the party would be over in less than ten minutes if she didn't make it hard enough. And Edrisa had gotten way too much beer and wine for a short-lived party.

Edrisa hadn't quite believed their luck when she realized that, for the first time in months, they all had a day off at the same time. Okay, perhaps the psych evaluation that had made it mandatory to take the free time had something to do with it, but she wasn't above taking advantage of a nice silver lining when one presented itself.

Dani and JT usually had mismatched days off, so that at least one of them could always be around to help Gil.

The lieutenant never had a day off, or so it seemed because he was always around, always available when something was needed.

And Bright...Bright usually spent his free days hanging around the precinct, helping the other teams with their cases, or sitting on the archive room floor, going through cold cases.

This time, however, the whole team would be here. Granted, it had been a month since she had talked about finding a day to do it, but the opportunity had only presented itself a couple of days before. Good thing she already had most of the items on standby and ready to go.

Besides the boss and his team, Edrisa had also invited a fellow medical examiner from another precinct and Lucas, a bright young man who had just graduated. The kid showed real promise of becoming an excellent forensics analyst, perhaps almost as good as her. If he did good at the party, she would even consider offering him a permanent job.

Out of habit, Edrisa flicked through her new messages on the phone. Her parents were coming to visit next week, something she was looking forward to because she always got to play tourist for a little bit when they were in town. The city was a world in itself and there was much of it that she never had the time to visit.

There was also a message from Dr. Lewis, asking for details about the party and wondering if he could bring his new girlfriend along. Edrisa rolled her eyes free of guilt, since no one could really see her. If she could venture a guess, this girlfriend, like the three previous ones, would barely be of drinking age.

However, he did raise a good point. In the confusion of getting all the details ready literally overnight, she had forgotten about informing the guests of where she actually lived, or else Lieutenant Arroyo would be the only one showing up, since he had her home address on file. That would make for a _totally_ awkward party.

Although, Edrisa was pretty sure the lieutenant had no plans of showing up at her party at all. He didn’t look like the party type.

Edrisa finished the last drop of her chocolate drink, licking at the brown foam-stache on her upper lip. She needed to get dressed and drop by the store to grab some last minute snacks. Drinking without eating could lead to intoxication, and she had no plans to end her night at the ER.

**JT-** **_49 hours before (9 AM)_ ** ****

The neighbor upstairs was screaming at his dog. Again.

JT flipped on his stomach, pulling his pillow over his head. “One of these days...” he let out, voice muffled from both sleepiness and the extra layer of stuffing.

By his side, Tally turned to him, a fine eyebrow rising across her forehead. Her swollen belly, expanding with each passing day, touched his side. “I told you we need to get that poor animal away from that monster,” she reminded him.

It was an old argument of theirs. JT wanted to knock on the guy's door and shove his badge under his nose, demanding some peace and quiet in the morning. It wouldn't do much unless he actually filed a formal complaint, but at least it might scare the prick into silence for a couple of days.

Tally actually wanted to stage a rescue, bring the dog to their house before something worse than shouting happened. JT kept warning her about property theft and how he would be forced to arrest her, which led to Tally daring him to fetch his handcuffs with a playful spark in her eyes. In fact, they were pretty sure one of those ' _discussions_ ' had been the happy responsible for the existence of baby Tarmel.

“Give it three months,” JT voiced with a small degree of glee on his voice, as he peeked from underneath his pillow. “JT Junior will be the one keeping that bastard awake in the wee hours of the morning.”

“Him and us, don't forget about that bit,” she agreed with a fond smile, caressing her round belly. “And we are not calling this child JT Junior,” Tally warned him. Again.

JT couldn't really argue with her, not when she looked so happy and glorious carrying their unborn child. It sometimes scared him how much he loved that woman and the tiny, fragile life she carried inside. What if something went wrong with the pregnancy? Or delivery? What if something happened to him on the job and he couldn't be there for the two of them? Who would take care of that kid?

“You're doing it again,” his wife's soft voice cut through the dark, spiraling thoughts inside the detective's head. “You need to relax and stop worrying so much, or this kid will be calling you grandpa instead of dad,” she reminded him with a gentle kiss on his nose. “Now, whose turn is it?”

JT returned her caress with one of his own, gently peppering her eyes, nose, and mouth with tender kisses. “Your turn, I think,” he pointed out, mischief in his eyes.

Tally pushed him away, giving him a stern look. “Nice try, mister,” she admonished. “It was actually a trick question to test your honesty, which you failed...now, get off your ass and bring me my breakfast!” she ordered, even though the playful smile on her lips belayed any harsh words coming out of her mouth.

JT groaned, rolling away to get up. “I can't wait to have another man around the house,” he muttered loud enough for her to hear. “This dictatorship of yours has gone far too long, woman!”

Tally giggled, sliding up to sit on the bed. “You love this dictator,” she reminded him.

At the door, JT turned to give her a witty reply. Instead, he froze, standing there, silently gazing at her. The gentle morning light was coming in through the sliver of space between the bedroom curtains, casting a veil of gold over Tally’s skin. Words died in his mouth as he realized how beautiful his wife looked in that very moment, not quite believing how lucky he was.

“This is the part where you say that I'm absolutely right,” Tally playfully reminded him.

“Fat chance, honey,” he managed to say, even though the answer she was looking for was clear and evident in his eyes. There was nothing there but love.

A pillow flew from the bed in his direction, narrowly missing his head. “Who are you calling _fat_ , mister?”

JT laughed, picking up the pillow and returning it to bed. “I meant...your wishes are my command, my queen,” he joked, making a hasty retreat down the hall. “Scrambled or boiled?”

“Scrambled,” Tally called out.

The detective walked into their kitchen, breathing in the morning air breezing in through the open window. Some would say there is no fresh air in a city as big as New York, but JT would disagree. He could smell the ocean from his house, mixed with the cooking herbs that Tally grew on pots by the window. It was almost like living in the country.

Except for the yelling neighbor upstairs and the car horns blaring from the traffic below.

As he opened the fridge to take out everything he needed for making breakfast, JT wondered about the future. He loved New York with all his heart, but not for the first time since learning about the baby, the young man wondered if this was the best place to raise a child. He and his siblings had grown up just fine in their little Brooklyn house. Tally, on the other hand, had grown up in West Virginia, in a little town in the shadow of the Appalachian mountains.

They had gone to visit her family a number of times. It was like stepping onto another planet.

JT wanted his son to run free outside, to experience nature and learn all about surviving in the wild. The city was a concrete jungle, but not exactly the kind of wild nature JT had in mind.

And despite New York’s beauty and charm, the detective had first hand knowledge of just how dangerous it could be. He knew the exact number of children who died every year from stupid accidents or violent crimes. The numbers had always been scary enough to keep him and Tally from taking the big step sooner, but now that Junior was on his way, they had a decision to make.

He could always take a position elsewhere, work in a small city, maybe run for sheriff. Sheriff Tarmel certainly had a nice ring to it.

The problem was, Tally loved the city as much as, if not more, than he did. Plus, the law firm where she worked was based in Manhattan. It would be unfair to expect her to give up her hard won position based solely on his fears.

His wife was fearless. It was one of the things that had made him fall in love with Tally in the first place, even if it still scared the crap out of JT.

Small arms wrapped themselves around his waist, the soft scent of lemon rising from Tally's freshly showered skin. “You're doing it again,” she warned him, reaching up to kiss his bare shoulder. “Good thing I am the best wife in the whole wide world and booked us a very, _very_ relaxing day.”

JT cracked a couple of eggs into a bowl, throwing the empty shells into the sink. “ _Or_ we could just enjoy our wonderful couch and fall asleep to a couple of bad TV shows,” he countered, wiping the contents of the bowl.

Tally's hands moved from his waist to his shoulders, fingers playing over the tight muscles. “The couch will do nothing for these stress knots on your neck,” she pointed out, pushing hard against one of the big ones. JT yelped, nearly dropping breakfast.

“Fine, Councilor, you've made your point very clear,” he conceded. He had to admit, Tally’s plan for spending their day at a couples’ spa sounded heavenly, even if centuries of ill advised manly ideas said that he had to, at the very least, protest a little bit. “What time do we have to be there?”

Tally pushed the bowl away, snuggling in between her husband and the kitchen counter. “Plenty of time,” she purred, reaching up to claim his lips.

  
  


**DANI-** **_49 hours before (9 AM)_ ** ****

The gym was mostly empty so early in the morning. It was Dani's favorite time of day to work out, with the soft morning light coming in through the big windows that gave the perfect panoramic view of the slowly waking city. That, and the silence. That early in the day, she could actually listen to the music playing in her earphones without the background noise of grunting, over-achieving men that seemed to lift weights using nothing but their vocal cords.

In her line of work, if she wanted the same level of peace and quiet to workout on a regular day, the detective was reduced to the late hours of the night, when all she could see through the windows was the city lights and wandering drunks looking for a place to crash.

Having a day off was not exactly her idea of a good time. Having a _forced_ day off was even worse. She had literally nothing that she wanted to be doing instead of work.

Unbidden, her mind went back to the events of two days before. Her heart had literally stopped inside her chest when she realized what she had done. As much as the detective looked deeply into her actions, Dani could not undo it. It had all happened so fast that, even if time machines were a thing, she still wouldn’t be able to stop herself from pulling that trigger a second time.

It came with the job, she reminded herself, the pep talk weirdly sounding like JT’s voice inside her head. And truly, no one had been seriously hurt.

But the fact remained that she could have killed Gil. Despite being covered in sweat, a chill ran down Dani’s back at the morbid thought.

She couldn’t help but compare the situation with what had happened to her father. He had been in the service as well, killed on a call because he had hesitated for a second too long. Turned out, the kid pointing at him wasn’t holding a toy gun but a real one, and her father had paid for that hesitation with his life.

Dani knew the cost of hesitating. So she hadn’t.

And she couldn’t thank God enough that Gil had been wearing a vest at the time, or she wouldn’t be just having a compulsive day off; she would have been suspended and prosecuted. Her life would have been over, just like that.

Edrisa had invited her for that weird murder-party, but Dani was scrambling for an excuse to simply not go. It wasn't like she had anything against the quirky coroner, it was just that she wasn't, as a rule, a very social person.

If there were ever two words that should never go together, they were certainly 'party' and 'murder'. Besides, there would be more people at the party, people she barely spoke with, and Dani was definitely not in the mood to make new friends.

The detective pushed the button on the treadmill that stood right in front of the window and set it for a smooth inclination. ' _Crazy in Love_ ' by Beyoncé popped into her shuffle, and Dani smiled.

She could definitely find better ways to spend her day.

She wasn't exactly 'crazy in love' yet, but there was someone that she could spend her day with. Nic, the clerk at the evidence locker room.

They had been on a few dates together and the chemistry was definitely there. The only thing stopping the two of them from moving onto an actual relationship was Dani’s own trust issues.

Dani looked at her reflection in the mirror. She was smiling, something she didn't do nearly enough since her father had passed away.

For as long as she could remember, it had only been the two of them, just her and her dad. Losing him had been a harsh blow in her life, as it was in every kid's life when they lost a parent; losing him in such a violent and needless manner, had only made matters worse.

Dani was the first to admit that she had a hard time trusting people. Gil had been the exception, but maybe that was just because he reminded her of her father.

Or maybe it was because the lieutenant trusted her when no one else would. Instead of kicking her out after her undercover ' _incident_ ', he had pulled her closer, standing by her side like a solid rock, pushing her to take the detective's exam, giving her a chance to work with the best. If she hadn't been able to trust him after all that, Dani would have lost all hope in herself.

JT had been an acquired taste. The experienced detective, who looked at everything she did with a critical eye, still insisted on treating her like she was his kid sister, despite the fact that he was barely three years older than her.

He had taken a bullet for her. Quite literally. About a week after she had joined the team, they had been chasing a perp down an alley. They had both done everything by the book, checked every corner, watched each other's back like the professionals that they were. Neither had spotted the second shooter on the roof until it was too late, and the only thing that her partner had time to do was push her away from the path of the incoming bullet.

Dani had been pissed at him at the time, after finding out that he would survive, of course. But in her mind, pushing her out of the way had been JT's way of letting her know that she wasn't up for the task, that she was a liability.

Eventually, he had to spell out for her the obvious: he had pushed her out of the way because that's what partners do, they protect each other. After that, he informed her that next time, it was her turn to eat a bullet for him.

Dani had trusted JT with her life ever since. Luckily for both of them, she had yet to return the favor.

Bright...Bright was an oddball. Well, in all honesty, he was an odd _everything_. She had every reason not to trust him, starting with who his father was and the fact that he usually played a very loose game with telling the truth. Most of the time, Dani had no idea if she should arrest him or hug him.

First time she had seen him, Dani wanted to punch him. No reason in particular, just a sudden urge to wipe that smug smile off his face with a well placed slug. And then, very much like JT, he had saved her life within hours of having met her. A complete stranger, and he had put his life on the line to make sure she survived.

Realistically, Dani knew that she couldn't keep expecting people to save her life in order to trust them. At one point in her life, she had to be the one to take the first step.

As her feet pounded the narrow, rolling black strip of the treadmill, Dani decided that today was the day that she was going to show her trust issues who was in charge. She was going to make a surprise visit to Nic at work, and the two of them were going to spend a lovely, romantic evening together. She might even wear a dress if the mood hit her.

**GIL-** **_49 hours before (9 AM)_**

Gil hadn’t actually slept. He could blame it on old age and the fact that his ribs were sore from the bullet impact on his vest the other day. Truth was, his head had kept him up, not his chest.

He had met Jackie on a call. Someone had tried to steal an old lady’s bag at a grocery store, and Jackie had smashed the guy’s nose in with a can of red beans. It had been love at first sight, if such a thing existed.

Her birthday was the next day. She would be turning forty-five if she was alive.

For a fleeting moment, as Dani’s bullet hit him, Gil had thought ‘Hey, Jackie! I’m coming home!’. 

He hadn’t been happy with the idea of dying--it wasn’t that. He loved life and still had much that he wanted to accomplish.

It was just that...he _missed_ her. He missed her laughter and the positive view she had on life. Nothing could ever beat her spirit down, not even the disease that eventually claimed her.

Usually, Gil would spend these special anniversaries working, taking a page out of Malcolm Bright’s book and losing himself in his job. This time, however, he couldn’t do that. The department shrink had been ‘concerned’ about the team’s general disregard for safety.

Gil had bitten his lip and refrained from asking the psychiatrist how many times he had been under fire. It would have been a fair question, but the lieutenant had been around long enough to know it didn’t take much to be labeled as ‘confrontational’ and ‘problematic’. No, he would save that line of questioning for the psychiatrist’s boss, because he was pretty sure that guy who interviewed all of them had no experience in dealing with combat trauma.

Dani had reacted to a threat, nothing more, nothing less. Comms hadn’t been working because of the structure of the building and he had refrained from identifying himself out loud because there had been no way of knowing who would be holding a gun on the other side of that turn. 

The young detective had responded the best she could using the information she had at the time. There was no one to blame, no fault to be pinned. It was just the kind of thing that happened in those situations. It was one of the reasons why they used bulletproof vests.

Dani, of course, had been mortified that she had shot her boss. Danger aside, it was kind of funny. How many wouldn’t kill for the opportunity?

What wasn’t funny was being sent home, to sort out their ‘mixed’ feelings, which left Gil with a whole day to fill out. A whole day of trying not to dwell on his thoughts and feelings.

Fortunately for him, one of the guys at work had given him tickets for a game that day. At the time, he had said no. 

Vince had been a new transfer from another precinct and Gil knew he was trying to make nice with the boss, but the guy had insisted and they were front row seats for the Knicks.

Jackie had been crazy about the Knicks.

JT, who had been there at the time, had given the guy a look that expressed exactly what he thought about sucking up to the boss, but had kept silent. He knew the importance of the team, even if Vince didn’t.

Gil suspected that was also the reason why the detective had declined the offer of the tickets when Gil tried to give them away. Tally couldn’t stand the game and, apparently, they had a _thing_ planned for today.

So Gil had sucked it up and kept the tickets for himself. Two of them, which meant that he needed to find himself a ‘date’.

He thought about calling Dani, but despite their good work relationship, he knew how the rumor mill worked. No one would see two coworkers, two friends, enjoying a game together; just a boss taking the young, beautiful woman who worked with him, on a date.

His brother was out of town on a fire department convention, so he was out of the question.

For a brief moment, Gil considered asking Jessica. Before he had met Jackie, Malcolm’s mother and he had been a flitting ‘thing’. They had never taken it very far, the relationship ending almost before it could have begun, but the nagging had always been there, like a piece of food stuck between their teeth. Of course, the idea of Jessica Whitly in a basketball game was odd in itself.

Jessica was more of a ballet kind of woman. Or a cocktail party. Definitely cocktail party material.

Which left Malcolm. It wasn’t like Gil didn’t enjoy the kid’s company. When Malcolm was small, he used to be around the house all the time; he had even tried to watch a game with Jackie once. Poor kid had fallen asleep with his head in her lap five minutes in. It was the only game where Jackie paid more attention to the child in her hold than the players on TV.

Malcolm would probably fall asleep again.

Before he could change his mind and find an excuse to let those tickets go to waste, Gil picked up his phone and dialed the kid’s number.


	3. 43 hours before (3 PM)

**JT-** **_43 hours before (3 PM)_ **

The place looked fancy. Fancy enough that JT had to wonder if Malcolm's mother wasn't a regular.

“Honey, you do know that we need to start saving for our kid's college tuition, right?” he whispered into her ear as they neared the door. He smiled back at the blond woman holding the door open for them, her green uniform in the same tone as the rest of the place. He was pretty sure that if she stood still against a wall, no one would be able to spot her.

“Relax, sweetheart,” Tally whispered back, offering her coat at the reception and handing over her appointment coupon. “I told you the guys at the office pitched in for this one... it's their treat,” she explained. “Our child's future is safe,” she added with a wink.

JT scowled at the curly haired man behind the reception desk as he handed over two, bright blue ribbons made of plastic. “What’s that for?” despite the color, they were much too similar to hospital ID bracelets for the detective’s comfort.

“Your package is all-inclusive, Mr. Tarmel,” the man explained with a bright smile. “This will allow you to roam around freely.”

“Mr. and Mrs. Tarmel, if you'd please follow me,” the overly smiling blond called to them, leading them down a well lit corridor. The walls were the same mint green shade of the entry lobby, decorated here and there with white orange blossoms. There was a pleasant, sweet scent hanging in the air that made him think of the countryside. JT hated to admit it, but the whole thing had a relaxing feeling to it.

“This is your suite for the day,” Blondie informed, stopping outside an open white door. “The pools are through the door on your left,” she pointed out. “Please, make yourselves comfortable and someone will join you soon with everything that you'll need to enjoy your day at the Ancient Baths. Would you like tea or some fresh orange juice?”

JT almost said 'a beer' before Tally took charge and ordered juice for them both.

The detective let out a long whistle as soon as the door closed behind them and they were alone. The room could fit both their living room _and_ bedroom. “Damn...how can they fit this kind of space in the middle of Manhattan?”

Tally walked to him, peeling clothes as she went. “Turn that big brain off for now and _breath in the AIRE's signature Orange Blossom scent_ ,” she giggled, reading from the flyer standing on the table. “Remember, today we are in ancient Rome and _when in Rome_...”

“I am not walking naked into those pools,” JT warned her, even as he opened the basket labeled 'His'. Inside he found a pair of swimming trunks, a white fluffy towel, a pair of slippers and a variety of body creams and golden wrapped chocolates. “Now we're talking!” he added in excitement. It was hard to tell if it was the sight of the trunks or the candy that sold the idea to him, but suddenly the day was turning from great to fantastic.

Sometime later, JT found himself with a whole new perspective on the world. The guys at work could never know that he now had a facial mask on his face and that some dude was massaging his back. He had been expecting a woman, for some sexist reason or another, but as soon as those strong fingers started undoing months of stress and worry from his back muscles, JT stopped caring. This was no man... that was a magician! A god with golden hands!

Now, all he had to do was concentrate so that the deep moans that were struggling to escape his mouth stayed hidden inside.

“Having fun yet?” Tally's voice reached him from above, gently piercing through his blissful haze. Her hand reached for his, sitting on her chair, getting a foot massage since her belly prevented her from getting the full back-rub experience. He couldn't see her face, but the mirth in her voice was plain to hear.

“I hope we can afford to do this every week,” JT muttered against the mattress. “Because there's no way I'm going without it now that I know it exists...you've created a monster, you know that, right honey?”

His wife giggled, clearly also enjoying herself. “I think we can accommodate this kind of vice in our lives...especially after I'm made junior partner next month,” she dropped casually.

The detective's head jerked up, searching for his wife's face. He needed to see her eyes, to know she wasn't joking. Not that she would joke about something like that... “You're serious! Honey, that is great news!”

Steve, the man with gold fingers, eased back into the shadows, sensing that the couple needed a few minutes to themselves. “I'll return later,” he offered, pretending he hadn't heard a thing, only to offer a quiet 'Congratulations, Ma'am' as he left.

JT jumped from the table as soon as he was free, throwing his arms around his wife in a tight hug. He knew how much work she had put into that promotion, how much extra time she had spent in the courtroom to show the rest of the partners in the firm that she was the right person for the position. “What Steve said,” he joked, rubbing his nose against hers. “No one deserves this more than you, honey!”

And he meant that, with all of his heart. Their life was just too perfect right now to be true. JT shuddered as a bad feeling coursed through his veins, making the fine hair at the back of his neck to stand up. His momma had raised a pessimist, as she always liked to remind him. Feeling like someone had just walked over his grave was nothing but that engrained pessimist working to ruin their perfect day. They had a baby on the way, Tally had just gotten a promotion, and for the first time in a long time, the whole team had been granted a few days off, never mind the circumstances.

Nothing was going to ruin that. Nothing.

They say that a pessimist can't really be surprised when bad things happen. They had no idea.

**GIL-** **_43 hours before (3 PM)_ **

Gil loved to cook. It had always been a passion of his since he was a teenager at his parents’ house. Being the oldest of five boys, it often fell onto him to cook meals for his siblings when his mother was working and his father was on one of his business trips.

He wasn’t a fancy cook, but he made a mean mac ‘n cheese from scratch. Of course, making food for one was always a challenge, but he had grown to enjoy eating leftovers.

When Jackie was still around, nothing gave him more pleasure than cooking for her. His late wife, bless her heart, was a complete disaster in the kitchen, the type that could burn boiling water. So, he would do the cooking as often as he could.

She loved his mac ‘n cheese, but what she was truly crazy about was his _ensaymadas_ , one of the few dishes his Filipino grandmother had taught him. Malcolm loved them too, the sugar and cheese covering his whole face as he used to dig into the large pastries.

It had been years since he had made them, Gil realized. All of a sudden, he was craving some _ensaymadas_ and found himself looking around the kitchen in search of the ingredients. He still had a couple of hours to kill until it was time to pick up Malcolm and, if he hurried, he could even bring the kid a freshly baked piece of heaven.

Cooking was like therapy for him, the lieutenant had come to realize. While his hands were busy measuring flour and picking up eggs and butter, his brain was free to roam and analyze his thoughts without guilt or preconceived ideas clouding his judgement. Vince’s interaction with him the previous day had been awkward, at best. Even suspicious, if Gil looked too hard into it.

As far as his record told, Vince Moretti was an average police officer. There were no black marks on file, no commendations either, but that was neither here nor there. Usually, whenever someone working for him came bearing gifts, it was because they wanted something from Gil. A shot at becoming a detective; a desk job; _out_ of a desk job; vacation time during a busy time of the year.

It never worked, because if there was one thing that Gil Arroyo hated, it was privilege at the workplace. He tried to treat all of his subordinates the same, and he did his best to treat them as he wished his former bosses had treated him. Which meant that kissing his ass was as effective as a car with a dead engine: it got them nowhere.

Vince’s tickets, however, had apparently come without any strings attached. The kid seemed happy enough to pass them along and had quickly scurried away as soon as Gil had taken them out of his hand.

And placed them inside the first drawer of his desk.

Gil closed his eyes and cursed out loud. He had left the damn tickets at the precinct!

Looking at the dough resting inside the plastic bowl, the lieutenant sighed. If he and Malcolm had any hope of making it to that game, he needed to leave right now, pick up the kid and drive by the precinct before heading to the stadium. Traffic would hit rush hour soon and there was no way he could afford to be driving back and forth in the streets of New York.

Abandoning the idea of fresh pastry, Gil wiped his hands clean and went upstairs to change his clothes.

  
  


**MALCOLM-** **_43 hours before (3 PM)_ **

Malcolm was sitting on the couch, staring at his TV with his eyes disconnected from his brain. He had no idea what kind of show was on, only that it involved a lot of people screaming at each other. He should probably fetch the remote and do something about it, but he had no idea where the thing was.

On the table in front of him lay his uneaten lunch. Well, he had called it lunch, but it was really just a boiled egg and a collection of the few unspoiled items he had found inside his fridge that still resembled food. Crusty jam and hard cheese hadn’t made for a very appealing meal, so he drank coffee instead. There had been sugar in it, so Malcolm was counting that as a win.

He stretched out his jean-clad legs, wondering if he still had time to change clothes. Again.

He had no idea on what people were supposed to wear to a baseball game. He figured some kind of clothing alluding to their favorite team was a good bet, but he didn't have anything from the Knicks. Or any other team, for that matter.

At least he had figured out in good time that a suit was probably not the best option. Jeans and a hoodie had been the next choice, but given that they were doing this in Jackie's memory, Malcolm wondered if he wasn't dressed too casually. Of course, Gil hadn’t mentioned Jackie at all, so Malcolm would need to remind himself to keep his mouth shut and allow the older man to initiate _that_ conversation.

The profiler couldn’t help but smile everytime he thought about Mrs. Arroyo. During a hard period in his life, when his mother could barely be there for his baby sister, Jackie and Gil had been the only grownups in Malcolm’s life who didn’t treat him either like a porcelain doll or the monster kid spawn of the ‘ _Surgeon_ ’.

The very first time he had met Gil’s wife had been after a school _altercation_ with a couple of older kids. Black eyes and bloody noses had been exchanged and his mother had been called by the director. Still tangled in her husband’s judicial mess at the time, Jessica hadn’t been able to escape her previous commitments, so she had sent Gil instead. In full uniform, Malcolm had been in awe at seeing the way Gil had defended him when the director had tried to put the blame on Malcolm, pointing out that he had merely defended himself when attacked and demanding to know what measures the school would be taking to prevent the situation from repeating itself. The director had wisely kept his mouth shut after that and promised to look into the matter.

Which he never did.

After that, Gil had taken him to his home, where Jackie had been waiting with ice cream, because she had heard Malcolm had a swollen lip and, as far as she knew, ice cream was the best -and only- cure for such an ailment. It had been love at first sight.

His phone screen lit up on the table. Even without reaching for it, the profiler could read the text message. ' _Waiting downstairs. Move your ass._ '

Doing a double take, Malcolm checked the time. It was barely three pm. Gil wasn’t supposed to pick him for two more hours. The game started at eight, which meant that at five there was plenty of time to grab a bite to eat -or pretend to, in Malcolm’s case- and go to the game. If the lieutenant was picking him up ahead of time, maybe something had come up.

Grabbing his wallet and keys, Malcolm quickly made his way downstairs, taking no notice of the TV or the news broadcaster that had replaced the shouting match, announcing bomb threats all over the city.

Gil's vintage, muscle car was parked right in front of his door. Malcolm smiled at the sight. “Multiple homicide rampage made the brass change their minds about sending us home?” he offered as a greeting to the older man.

Gil’s eyebrow rose on his forehead. He gave him a pointed look that clearly told that they had, had this conversation before and the lieutenant was not a fan. “Get in,” he simply said, pulling out as soon as Malcolm’s door banged shut. “We need to make a small detour.”

**EDRISA-** **_43 hours before (3 PM)_ **

Edrisa felt her phone tremble inside her bag as she walked down the street towards the subway. Her hands were filled with bags and there was no way she was going to set them on the filthy ground just to answer a call. It was probably some annoying advertiser anyway, trying to sell her something that she didn’t want or had no need for. Or worse, her bank, offering some credit line for her to have more money to spend on things she didn’t want or need.

A store window filled with TVs caught her attention, because they were all showing the exact same image. A chill travelled down her spine. That only happened when something really bad hit the news. She stopped for a moment, long enough to read the headlines, hoping it was just some celebrity announcing a divorce.

 _Bomb threats alert all over midtown_ ... _So far, none have been confirmed, but the police were working non-stop to secure all the locations_ ... _Here is a list of places to avoid until cleared by the authorities-_

Edrisa sighed. This was definitely a good day to not be at the precinct. She checked the list being provided by the news’ reporter and, sure enough, the 16th was right in the middle of the whole mess.

Her phone convulsed again inside her bag, long enough to spark her curiosity over who was being so insistent. She looked around, trying to find a place where she could set her bags and fish the phone out. Her eyes landed on a bakery shop across the street. If she squinted hard enough, she could just make out a couple of empty tables inside.

Edrisa looked both ways before stepping a foot in the road. There was no crosswalk in sight, so she decided to brave the small, two way street. There wasn’t that much traffic anyway.

So, when a car came speeding around the curb like it was being chased by the police, Edrisa was surprised. She yelped, jumping backwards and almost dropping all of her bags as the car passed inches from her, right over the small pond on the edge of the road. It drove by so close that she could see the face of the man sitting in the passenger’s seat and notice the scar across his right eye.

“Jerk!” she yelled. Her heart was beating widely inside her chest and as she looked down she finally noticed that her jeans were soaked from foot to knee because--of course!--the car had managed to hit the only puddle in the street and splash her with dirty water.

Edrisa swept through the bakery like a tropical storm, all hot and leaking water. “Can I get a cappuccino, please?” she ordered, forcing herself to smile at the kid behind the counter. It wasn’t his fault that New York was filled with assholes.

“ _Can you get one_ or do you want one?” the kid asked with an annoying smirk.

Edrisa gave him a cold stare, long enough for him to understand that his career as a comedian was off to a bad start.

Finally sitting at a window table, soggy pants steadily dripping on the otherwise pristine floor, Edrisa pulled out her phone. There was a text message from Dani and one from JT. She sighed, guessing what the messages would say.

Sure enough, Dani had awoken feeling under the weather and was staying home feeding her head-cold chicken soup and good drugs. JT was also sorry, but the appointment he had with his wife was running late, so he wouldn’t be able to make it to her party.

Edrisa sipped her hot beverage, licking at the white foam mustache she could feel coating her upper lip. Dani’s excuse sounded exactly like an excuse, but then again, the detective had seemed kind of reluctant when she had said yes initially. Edrisa figured that perhaps it was still too soon their friendship for such things as themed parties.

And JT had a baby on the way. The things she had already planned for that child! But in the meantime, it melted Edrisa’s heart that the detective was such an attentive husband and was going with his wife to her pregnancy appointments. He was going to make a wonderful father.

The missed calls had been from Bright and Steve, the medical examiner on duty that day. Bright had left her a voice message.

Feeling her heart sink a little bit lower, Edrisa decided to call Steve first.

“Dr. Tanaka!” the man coughed from the other side. “So sorry to bother you on -cough- your day off…”

“Are you at work with that cough?” she asked, concerned. Thoughts of contaminated samples ran wild inside her head before she remembered that he was not a moron.

“ _No...I called you to let you know that Lucas is covering for me_ ,” he informed her. “ _He said he didn’t mind…_ ”

“Lucas shouldn’t be alone in the lab,” she reminded him with a frown. Brilliant as he was, he still lacked the experience to deal with certain aspects of the job.

“ _That’s why I was calling you_ ,” Steve let out. “ _I’ll try to get back as soon as I can, but I was watching the -cough- news and got concerned..._.”

Edrisa sighed again. It really wasn’t Steve’s fault that he was sick, but that meant that Lucas wouldn’t be going to the party either. “That’s okay, Steve...just take care of yourself, and get better soon,” she offered, smiling at the phone before realizing that Steve couldn’t actually see her.

“ _Will do, boss_ ,” he finished with another deep, hacking cough.

Edrisa looked at the bags filled with snacks that she had bought for the murder-party, the one that, she suspected, had just been murdered.

Disheartened, the medical examiner played Bright’s voiced message. “ _Edrisa, hi! I’m sorry to call on such short notice, but...I chipped a tooth-going to my dentist right now. Probably won’t make it to your party...sorry! Hope you have fun!_ ”

Edrisa slid down the chair. The final nail had been hammered. No one was coming to her party.

Despite the fact that she was no longer five and these things should not matter, she felt her eyes sting. Everyone had valid reasons, she knew that, but disappointment didn’t necessarily need to be rational.

She finished the rest of her cappuccino, coming to a resolution. The precinct was within walking distance and she needed a change of clothes. And to check on Lucas...he really shouldn’t be there all alone, especially when there were bomb threats all over town. She was sure he would like a helping hand.

Decision made, Edrisa took a deep breath and dialed Dr. Lewis's number. “Jake? Hi...look, about that party today…”

  
  


**DANI-** **_43 hours before (3 PM)_ **

It was a very strange feeling to step into the precinct for anything other than work. Like being an outsider inside your own house. Dani greeted the officer at the reception desk with a nod before her feet started carrying in the direction of her desk. She pulled a sudden stop, just short of entering the bullpen, as her brain reminded her that she was there just to pick Nic up. The detective was not ready to pull a 'Bright' and sit at her desk on her day off, waiting for something to come up. The detective checked the time...still two hours to go.

She could either go into the break room to have some coffee while she waited, take the risk of running into someone going to Edrisa's party and answering a dozen questions that she was not in the mood to answer, or...she could go downstairs and keep Nic company until shift change.

There really was no choice there. The elevator was busy on the top floor, and if she remembered right, it would be there for a while more as the folks in the offices up there always forgot to close the door properly. With her legs still a bit stiff from her morning workout, taking the stairs was almost a welcome distraction.

The lights flickered twice as she took the flight of steps that led to the evidence locker room, or the 'freezer' as most officers referred to it. Nic and the others had orders to keep the whole floor a bit colder than the rest, in order to best preserve whichever piece of evidence they were storing at the time, even though DNA evidence and organic products were kept in a different location altogether. Which meant that the whole place was always at least ten degrees colder than the rest of the building.

The cold, plus the very much not regulation abiding red Knicks beanie that Nichole usually wore while working, had earned her the infamous nickname of _Santa_.

“Hi, Santa!” Dani greeted her with a smile. “Looking fresh!” she teased, wrapping her hands around her arms for warmth. She could feel the chill even through her jacket.

“Fuck...not you too, D!” the other woman smiled back, stepping from behind the counter to meet her. Behind her, the entire wall had been replaced with iron bars, separating the reception area from the vast vault on the other side, with row upon row of shelves filling it from one end to the other. “I keep telling you guys, the damn beanie is orange, not red,” she explained, hands on her waist, looking more playful than pissed. “Plus, I'm a woman, not a fat old man with a bushy beard!”

There was no denying that. With her curly ginger hair, bright blue eyes and perfect shapely body, there was no mistaking Nic for a man.

Dani wanted to kiss her right there and then, but with a glance at the three security cameras keeping them under watch, she settled for a fist bump. While she was off duty, there was no need to get Nic in trouble for flirting on the job.

“I thought you had said five?” the clerk asked, flipping her wrist to look at the time.

Dani's eyebrow rose up in a playful manner. “I've missed you,” she offered. “Though I might come in and learn some of the inner workings of evidence-sitting,” she added with a smirk.

Nic huffed, going back to her post. “Joke all you want, Miss I'm-a-Big-Badass-Detective,” the clerk let out sarcastically. “But there's nothing like being paid to sit on my ass while I study.”

She had a point. It was the perfect job for the young woman as she worked her way through med-school. Two more semesters and Nic would become Dr. Santa.

In the meantime, she played guardian for all the evidence they worked hard to collect and put bad guys away. Either way, she was important. “My badass clerk, Dr. Santa,” Dani teased her, earning herself a paper ball on the head.

“Where are we going afterwards?”

“I was thinking about trying this new Thai place in Queens?” Dani offered with a shrug. The place was perhaps a little too romantic for her taste, with the front seat view to Manhattan across the river and a ceiling filled with little lights that made you feel like you were eating under the stars. Truth was, Dani was craving some delicious _Tom Yum_.

“Sounds good,” Nic nodded, licking her lips in anticipation. The fact that she was staring at Dani’s tight jeans probably had nothing to do with that. “So, you gonna stick around for a bit?” she asked, her voice low and deep.

Dani had to clear her throat, heat rising from her chest all the way to her cheeks.

“Yeah, she is,” a man’s voice replied for her.

Dani looked around, surprised to see four officers making their way down the steps. They were wearing police uniforms, but there was something odd about their badges and insignias. The numbers placed them as belonging to the 11th precinct.

By the time it hit her that there was no 11th precinct in New York City, it was already too late.

One of the guys must have sensed her wandering eyes because there was suddenly a gun right in front of her face. Dani’s first instinct was to reach for hers, only to be reminded that she was off-duty. Her gun was locked inside her safe, in her bedroom, at her apartment. 

Her second instinct was to grab her cellphone and hit the panic button. Hopefully, someone on the other side would send help.


	4. 42 hours before (4 PM)

**GIL-** **_42 hours before (4 PM)_ **

One hour! It had taken them one blasted hour to make their way to the precinct through the insanity of New York’s permanent traffic jam. Gil could no longer tell if it was the rush of people going out of the city for the weekend, if it was the rush of people getting into the city for the same reason, or if it was simply the generalized madness of the population at large. Even the threat of bombs all over downtown and the recommendation to stay away from those areas seemed pointless when it came to traffic. It was a beast of its own.

Gil had been very, very tempted to turn on the car’s flashing lights and just pretend he was on official police business.

“I could have just gotten us another set of tickets at the stadium,” Malcolm pointed out testily. Again. “Or we could have parked the car and taken the subway.”

Gil’s hands curled around the wheel. He wasn’t angry at Malcolm’s suggestions, far from it. He was just reassuring his girl that he would never abandon her in the middle of the city, in some nasty parking lot, at the mercy of unfamiliar hands. Very much the same way that he would never allow Malcolm to spend the equivalent of half of Gil’s salary on tickets for a basketball game. “No point now,” he pressed. “We’re nearly there.”

Fortunately for them, and their chances of still catching the game, being a lieutenant came with some perks, namely a parking space, sparing them from wasting another hour looking for a place to park.

“You wanna wait out here?” Gil offered the kid. “This shouldn’t take me more than two minutes.”

Malcolm was out of the car even before Gil had finished his sentence. “Two minutes is very optimistic on your part,” he explained. “I’ve seen how these people flock around you the second you step inside the precinct,” the profiler reminded him. 

It was one of the reasons why Gil wasn’t looking forward to going inside to fetch the tickets. But having Malcolm doing it would only raise more questions and in the end they would end up losing even more time. He sighed, rushing up the steps, resigned to his fate. 

He pressed his hand against the door, pushing in. The door, however, didn’t move. “That’s weird,” he mumbled to himself, fishing his keychain from his jacket pocket. It was the middle of the day, there was absolutely no reason why the door to a public service precinct should be locked.

There was no one around as he stepped inside. There was always one officer on duty at the reception desk, signing in every guest and worker that came in or out of the precinct. They could see the edge of the chair behind the desk, turned upside down with its wheels in the air. 

Gil looked behind him. He could see on Malcolm’s face the same suspicions. Something was very wrong.

The tickets completely gone from his mind, Gil rushed to the bullpen, bypassing the empty reception desk. There was no one sitting at the desks, no one inside the conference rooms, not a living soul around. It was like they had stepped into a ghost town.

“Where is everyone?” Malcolm whispered. Even sound seemed intrusive, like a loud voice would shatter whatever illusion they were witnessing.

Gil bit on his lip, picking up a phone from the nearest desk. On the other side, the silence was as oppressive as in the room. “Lines are down,” he whispered back, fishing his cellphone from his pocket. Across the room, he could see the profiler doing the same. The dreaded words _‘No service’_ flashed across his screen. From the look on Malcolm’s face, he didn’t have any better news.

The chill that had crept across his skin as he walked inside the deserted police station solidified into a block of ice at the pit of Gil’s stomach. This was not a coincidence. Someone had taken over his precinct and cut all lines to the exterior.

Just as he was going to rush Malcolm out the door, they heard someone walking their way. Gil found himself crouching behind a desk before he could form the thought to hide. On the other side of the room, he could only hope that Malcolm had reacted just as fast.

“I thought you said you’d lock the damn door,” a man with a heavy Russian accent pointed out.

“I didn’t,” a second man pointed out, sounding annoyed. “Ling was the one in charge of doing that…”

“Same difference,” the first man hissed, sounding dismissive. “You all look the same to me…”

“That is because Russian brains are tiny and filled with melted ice,” the second man pointed out. “Let’s just lock this shit up, place the charges, and check on the others.”

“Asshole.”

**MALCOLM-** **_42 hours before (4 PM)_ **

His heart was beating so loud inside his chest that Malcolm feared everyone with a set of ears would hear it. From the reflection on the glass, he could see that the two talking men were dressed in police uniforms, even if they were definitely not. It explained how they had managed to walk inside a police station and take charge so easily.

And all the evidence around them pointed to the fact that it had been easy. 

There were no visible signs of struggle, no large stains of blood on the floor or walls, leading the profiler to assume that the people who had been working there at the time were still alive. Unless they had used some sort of gas…

Malcolm shook his head, forcing himself to pay attention to what was happening in the present, rather than trying to figure out what had happened before he and Gil arrived.

He couldn’t see Gil from where he was hiding, but from the lack of reaction of the two men, the profiler figured he was out of sight.

Malcolm couldn’t help but wonder what was the intent behind this attack. It took a special kind of hubris to invade a precinct in broad daylight. It also took no small amount of planning and, quite possibly, help from the inside.

What did they want? Was it a terrorist attack? Were they trying to prove a point? Was it something personal against someone in the precinct? Against Gil?

Malcolm swallowed against the unsettling feeling inside his mouth. If this was someone with a personal quarrel with the lieutenant, then he needed to get Gil out of there as soon as possible, before the older man did something they would both regret.

That plan fell to the ground as he heard the men talking about placing charges on the door. Knowing that their backs would be turned, Malcolm risked taking a peek over the desk where he was hidden.

Both men had their attention on the C4 packs that they were currently attaching to the door lock, wiring the trigger to the mechanism. 

He and Gil had been fortunate in their timing. Ten minutes later and they would have both been blown to pieces when Gil used his key to get in.

“Okay...let’s get back to the others,” one of the men said as he walked past Malcolm’s hiding spot. “The clock is ticking and those morons are taking too long...this shit is taking forever!”

As soon as the footsteps died down, Malcolm risked walking into the open. From the other side of the bullpen, he could see Gil’s greying head peeking from behind a cabinet. The lieutenant pointed to the men’s bathroom closer to Malcolm’s position.

The profiler nodded, carefully opening the door, grateful it wasn’t one of the squeaky doors. Inside, like the rest of the precinct, there was no one. Gil joined him a few seconds later.

“Who the hell are these people?” Gil whispered, locking the door behind him. That lock wouldn’t do much against the attackers’ guns, but it would at least give them some warning if someone tried to come in.

“I think they might be looking for something, or someone,” Malcolm pointed out. “One of the guys was saying that it was taking them too long...did you recognize any of them?”

Gil shook his head. “You? Maybe from your FBI days?”

The profiler bit on his lower lip. “No, I don’t think so…” With someone on the inside to help them, as Malcolm was sure they had, the men would have known who was on duty and who was absent from the precinct. Everyone in there was surely locked away somewhere, which meant that, if they were looking for someone, they would have already found that person or given up looking. “If they were looking for something, what could it be?”

The lieutenant shrugged. He was looking at the window on the other end of the room. The metal bars on the outside made it pretty much useless for any escape attempt, which had been their purpose from the beginning. The whole precinct was designed to keep people _inside_. “We need to warn someone about what’s going on,” he voiced, his mind already hard at work on how the hell they were going to do that.

“They must be jamming the cellphone tower just outside,” Malcolm theorized, looking at his phone. Like before, he could get no signal.

“The roof,” Gil suggested, light shining on his eyes. This was his police station, Malcolm could only imagine how personally he was taking the whole situation. “There's a helipad up there,” he explained.

Malcolm nodded. That might actually work. If the chopper was parked there, they could use its radio to call for help. “I’ll go,” the profiler voiced.

“No,” Gil said very firmly, his hand resting over Malcolm’s chest. “You’re a weaponless civilian in my precinct,” he pointed out, raising a finger in the air when Malcolm opened his mouth to start protesting.”This is _my_ precinct, _my_ responsibility, so you are staying here, out of sight...is that clear?”

So...he was taking this pretty personally, it would seem.

Malcolm wanted to point out that he was a civilian _now_ , but that he had been an FBI agent for nearly ten years, six of those working in the field; and that a weapon wasn’t going to do much against an unknown number of heavily armed perps. The two they had seen had been carrying semi-automatics and C4. There was no telling what else they might have. “You don’t have a weapon either,” he offered instead. It sounded weak even to his own ears.

“I have my spare in my desk,” Gil explained, like that solved everything. “Promise me you won’t leave this bathroom?” he asked, his eyes locked with Malcolm’s.

“I promise,” the profiler found himself saying. “...to do my best to stay put,” he finished, even though Gil had already left the bathroom and missed the end of his sentence.

Malcolm stared at his reflection in the mirror. There were deep lines of worry carved like trenches on his face. Even though he could rest at ease that Dani, JT and Edrisa had not been inside the precinct when the attack happened, that did nothing for the ball of anxiety in his stomach from knowing that Gil was out there, playing the hero, trying to reach the roof on his own.

Desperate to keep his promise and not lose his sanity in the meantime, Malcolm turned his thoughts to the reasons behind the attack.

Instead of asking why this precinct, he asked himself why today of all days. It was supposed to be a plain Friday, but instead, the city had woken to a series of scattered bomb threats. Half of the entire NYPD was spread thin all over town, leaving all precincts with their bare, skeleton crews. 

That couldn’t have been a coincidence. So, assuming that someone had gone to all of this trouble to find something inside this particular precinct, on this particular Friday, what could it be?

Malcolm thought back to the previous days and the raid at the warehouse. The number of men who had been guarding Mário Berganno had been strange to some degree. The man was a ruthless killer, perfectly able to defend himself...so, why ten bodyguards?

Unless they had been guarding more than the man. Something much more important than a single person. Something that had been brought back to the 16th precinct as evidence. Something or someone...

The profiler’s eyes widened as he realized he knew exactly where to find this mysterious item that seemed to have eluded the perps so far.

Logic dictated that they would be looking first in the evidence locker. But if it had been there, they would have found it already.

If it wasn’t in the evidence locker, then there was only one place where it could be. The morgue.

Silently apologizing for breaking his promise, Malcolm carefully opened the bathroom door and stepped outside.

**DANI-** **_42 hours before (4 PM)_ **

Dani was fuming. She had been caught with her figurative pants down, weaponless and outnumbered. It was the kind of situation that they had mentioned at the academy, but no one ever believed it would happen to them. It sounded straight out of a bad action movie. After all, who the hell attacked a police station filled with cops?

In such a closed space, she had no chance of overpowering all four guys before at least one of them got the upper hand. So, she decided to be smart about it and surrender.

An hour later, with her hands tied tightly behind her back and her feet numb from the ropes around her ankles and her toes frozen solid because they had removed her frigging boots, Dani was seriously reconsidering her choices.

Nic, sitting beside her in similar restraints, was pissed. Understandably so.

Those guys were looking for something and were not being nice about their search. The long lines of shelves, carefully organized by year, month, week and day, with all the evidence properly stored inside legal boxes, were in disarray.

Even through the gag in her mouth, Dani had no trouble understanding what Nic was shouting at them. It was an...interesting choice of words. There was a lot of parentage being questioned and imaginative ways the perps could fuck themselves being expelled from the tied up woman, as she saw all of her hard work being carelessly thrown to the ground and smashed.

Dani wondered why no one had answered her distress call. There was a giant clock hanging over the access to the evidence lock up, and she could easily see that it had been over an hour since she had sent it. Granted, she only had a few seconds to press the right buttons and it was the first time she had used it, so there was no way of knowing how effective it really was.

If the call had made it to dispatch, she was sure the station would be crawling with special forces already. Unless there was something more at work here than what she could tell.

The fact was, she couldn’t tell much of what was going on. Whoever these guys were, they were professionals. Well organized and careful with their words, keeping everything close to the vest.

So, Dani had decided to take a page out of Bright’s book. She was _reading_ them.

It was pretty obvious that they were stressed about something, so whatever it was they were looking for, it was important enough that failing was out of the question. Important enough to bullshit their way into a police station like they owned the place.

She couldn’t hear any sounds of fighting outside before or after those guys had come down the stairs. They could have either slipped past the people upstairs unnoticed, or they were a part of a larger group that had taken over the entire precinct. From the way one of them kept talking into a short-range walkie-talkie, Dani was sure that there were more of them scattered throughout the building.

So, they had just walked in and taken over the place. From the lack of commotion and shots fired, it was embarrassing to imagine how easy that might’ve been.

The detective tried to imagine what kind of group would have both the manpower, weapons and organization to pull something like that off.

She had worked enough cases in Vice to recognize organized crime when she saw it. The accents she had heard didn’t give much away, so it was impossible for her to know with which particular group she was dealing. That would have helped narrow down what the hell they were looking for.

They seemed particularly interested in the things that had been brought from the warehouse. Given that the place was filled with stolen and illegal merchandise, there was quite a lot to go through.

Mário Berganno, the guy she had shot, had known affiliations with the Italian mob, that much they knew. Dani figured these guys did as well.

Nic shifted again beside her. Dani looked at her, surprised to find a glint in the other woman’s eyes. Nic moved her arm closer to Dani and touched her bound hand.

The detective’s eyes widened as she felt the cold touch of a blade being press against her fingers. Sneaky Nic had been working on her ropes the entire time she had been mumbling under her gag.

Dani could have kissed her, right there and then, but she would have to save it for later, as she furiously worked on her own ropes. From the corner of her eye, she was keeping tabs on both the armed man and Nic’s fingers, fumbling with the knots around her ankles.

She knew the woman had an impulsive streak the size of the Grand Canyon. In fact, she was pretty much like Malcolm in that respect, which meant that Dani seriously doubted Nic would wait for her to get free before she made her move.

**JT-** **_42 hours before (4 PM)_ **

JT had never felt this relaxed in his entire life. It was like every fiber of his body was leaning back in a reclining chair with a cold beer in its tiny fiber hands. He was pretty certain he was wearing a goofy smile on his face too, worse than his post-coitus face -or so Tally kept telling him- but he couldn’t care less.

He was happy. He was relaxed, and he reclined on the pool of heated water with his wife, resting her head on him. His hand gently caressed the curve of her stomach, feeling the baby kick happily under his touch as the two of them calmly decided what to do next. 

Life was perfect.

His other hand reached for his cellphone out of habit. He usually kept it close by for work reasons, but he also occasionally allowed himself to indulge in a game or two. Tally’s eyes were closed, little snores like the purr of a cat drifting up from her serene face. JT felt too content to even consider moving, but he could play a game or two with the sound turned off.

As he turned the phone on, the first thing JT saw was not a screen asking for the unlocking code but a 911 alert from Dani that immediately sent his heart into a panic. Looking closer, the detective could see that it was one of those automatic things that her phone could send, with information about Dani’s whereabouts and a notification informing them that no ambulance had been sent.

The detective frowned. Any other person, he would say that it had been sent by mistake. But not Dani.

This was a woman who had such a tight control over her life that she called her landlord to remind _him_ that it was rent day.

If she had sent that distress signal, it was because she was in need of help. JT opened the map attached to the message. It pinpointed her location as being inside the precinct, one hour ago, when it had been sent to all of her emergency contacts.

Gently shifting his wife’s head from his stomach onto a pillow, the detective got up to call Gil. He too had been contacted, so if this was some sort of misunderstanding, the lieutenant would know. After all, what would Dani be doing at the station when they had all been placed on mandatory downtime?

If it were Bright, JT wouldn’t have been surprised. After all, the young man seemed obsessed with work. Hell, he had probably slipped into the precinct on day one to haunt the other teams. Maybe that was why Dani had sent the message...she had caved in and finally murdered Bright.

Gil wasn’t picking up. 

JT frowned, glaring at his cellphone, as though it had something to do with the call not going through. Silently apologizing to his sleeping wife, the detective stepped outside of the curtained area.

Some of the other pools were occupied, either by other couples or small groups of people. He moved away from the noise, needing room for his pounding heart. Something was wrong, his mind kept telling him.

After a second time hearing his call to Gil go straight to voicemail, JT decided to try Dani. 

Straight to voicemail as well.

In despair, he dialed Bright’s number. The man answered every time, no matter where he was or what he was doing. ‘ _Hello, this is Bright. Please leave your name, number and a brief message. Thank you_.”

Straight to voicemail.

There was no question about it. Something terrible had happened, and JT had no idea what. He paced back to his wife, reluctantly deciding to ruin the rest of Tally’s day. But if something bad had happened, and he did nothing about, JT would never be able to forgive himself. His wife would understand that. 


	5. 40 hours before (6 PM)

**GIL-** **_40 hours before (6 PM)_ **

Gil wiped the sweat running down the side of his face. His usual choice of turtleneck shirt was comfortable for just about anything, except sneaking around his own police station.

He had quickly crawled to his office after leaving Malcolm in the bathroom, knowing it was just a matter of time before the kid ran out of patience. But for the time being, Gil needed to move forward with the knowledge that Malcolm, at least, was safe for now.

The same went for Dani and JT, who were each hopefully enjoying their time off in blissful ignorance of what was happening here. Knowing them, Gil was sure they would try to storm the precinct if they caught wind of an assault. He shuddered, imagining the front door exploding under their efforts.

Dani was a brilliant young woman who could've easily climbed high in the ranks, if only she allowed that for herself. And JT...the man was about to become a father! Being on the wrong side of a police holdup with doors wired with explosives was the last place Gil wanted the man.

Although Gil had told Malcolm that he was going straight for the roof to send out an SOS, the lieutenant had a secondary goal in his mind. Somewhere inside that building, the people who had been on duty that day were locked up. His people. And he needed to know that they were okay.

Logically, his mind kept telling him, there was no point for these men to hide dead bodies, but his stomach kept twisting in knots at the possibilities.

Taking a deep breath, the lieutenant moved quietly from door to door, listening closely for any signs of either the perps or his people. So far, the ground floor seemed to be deserted.

Gil stopped when he reached the stairs. Down, there were three floors: the evidence lock up, the cells and the morgue. Up, there were only two floors of bureaucratic offices, accounting and temporary living quarters.

The smart thing would be to go up, straight to the roof, find that communications tower or the helicopter and send for help. 

Instead, Gil crept down the steps. He couldn’t quite explain the logic behind his decision, or even if it was a conscious decision at all, but his pulled him further down the stairwell.

**MALCOLM-** **_40 hours before (6 PM)_ **

It was incredible that the corridors of the precinct could look so wide and menacing when there was no one around. On any other day of the week, Malcolm had a hard time walking in a straight line from one end to the other, always bumping into people or having to squeeze against the wall to allow someone else to pass.

Also, Malcolm had never noticed how many office doors lined that part of the station. He moved forward carefully, his ears straining to pick up any noise. There was no telling how many of those guys were inside the precinct or where they were.

In his mind, the profiler could not shake the feeling that this had something to do with the raid the previous day. The warehouse raid had only yielded old items and outdated farm products. So, what had those guys been guarding?

The only possible answer was they weren't guarding a what, but a who--Mário, the man Dani had killed. But then the real question became _why_? What was so important about this one man that these guys had risked taking a police precinct by assault in broad daylight?

Whatever the answer to that question was, Malcolm was certain that he would find it with the body. There had to be something about Mário or on him that these guys wanted badly enough to risk everything.

From the profile that Malcolm had pieced together about the man, he had been a narcissistic psychopath with known association with organized crime in New York. He enjoyed killing people, and he had figured out that he could make good money by doing it for the right people. Somehow, Malcolm doubted that whoever said to ' _choose a work that you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life_ ' had Mário's particular line of expertise in mind.

Hardly believing his luck, Malcolm managed to reach the morgue without running across anyone. He quickly inserted the code in the digital lock, silently cursing as each number he entered made its own, individual chirping noise. As the door finally clicked open, Malcolm cast a last look behind himself, making sure that the corridor remained empty.

The lights were on, and he could hear the soft clattering of instruments in the other room. Through the glass opening he could see Lucas, one of the medical examiners on Edrisa's team, working around a body on the table.

“Is anyone else here with you?” Malcolm whispered as he neared the young man.

Lucas turned around in fright, scalpel in his hand and his eyes wide open behind the protective glasses. He looked like an odd mix of scared little boy and murderous, mad scientist. “Crap on a cracker! You scared the shit out of me!” he yelled, bending at the waist as he tried to control his harsh breathing.

Malcolm cringed, looking back at the door. As far as he could tell, all the bad guys were on the other side of the building, but there was no room for them to take chances. “Shhhh...be quiet!” he hissed at the other man. “Answer the question.”

“Bright! What are you doing here? Weren't you supposed to be at the dentist?”

It was Malcolm's turn to look spooked. Edrisa's voice was the last thing he had been expecting. “Edrisa...what the hell are you doing here?” he found himself asking, feeling his cheeks redden. “Never mind,” he quickly added, remembering that they had much more pressing matters at hand than being caught in a lie. “Where is the Berganno body?”

“In the next room,” Edrisa pointed out, giving him a hurt look, arms crossed in front of her chest. “Does Gil know you're here? Or did you lie to him too?”

Malcolm flinched at the jab. He really liked Edrisa and the last thing he wanted was for her to think that he had made up an excuse to ditch her party. Well, technically, that was exactly what he had done, but not for the reasons she was probably imagining. “He knows,” he offered, trying to look as apologetic as he could muster without wasting precious time. “Look, we don't have much time...just tell me where the body is, and then you two need to get out of here!”

Lucas seemed to catch onto the panic in the profiler's voice for the first time. “Why?” he asked, looking like someone who really didn't want to know the answer to that question.

Malcolm looked around the room, realizing that he had unwillingly trapped himself in a secluded part of the precinct with nothing but two civilians and a number of dead people. It almost sounded like the beginning of a bad horror movie.

“There is a group of armed hostiles inside the precinct,” Malcolm informed them. He almost stopped himself as both medical examiners paled to match the color of their lab coats, but there really wasn’t any way to sugar coat what was happening. “We're cut off from the outside, and we don't know how many they are, but if they are here because of Berganno, we can actually get ourselves an advantage...if I can see the body!”

“What do you mean _armed hostiles_? Like...they walked in here with guns?!” Lucas balked, creeping slowly away from Malcolm, like he was the real threat. He stopped abruptly when his back hit the wall. “How the hell do we get out of here?”

“We can worry about that later,” Edrisa pointed out. Her voice trembled, mirroring her shaking body, but there was a steely resolve in her eyes. “I haven't started the autopsy yet, but all of his belongings are on that table,” she explained, pointing to her right.

Everything was already labeled and placed inside plastic bags. At first glance, they all looked like the normal things one could find in almost everyone's pocket. A wallet. Keys. His phone. A pen. A pocket watch.

He grabbed the phone first. The screen had shattered at some point and when he tried to turn it on, there was no reaction. Either it had run out of battery or lives. If Mário was holding something important with him, would he trust a piece of technology that could easily be hacked or broken?

Malcolm figured that the man had been too cautious for that. He looked at the remaining items on the table, sweat dripping down the side of his head. Somewhere else in that building, Gil was alone with those people, probably doing something ridiculously stupid and dangerous.

The morgue was too deep inside the building, with reinforced walls. It was like standing inside a vault for all that it muffled sound. He had no way of knowing what was happening on the upper floors. No way of knowing if Gil was okay.

They were running out of time. The profiler knew that the only reason Edrisa and Lucas hadn't been discovered yet was the coded locked door that gave access to that floor.

Malcolm grabbed the watch on an impulse. It was linked to a golden chain, an old model, the kind people had stopped using two centuries before. Popping it open, it was clear to see that the watch wasn't even working. The seconds handle was still, frozen in place at nine o’clock. He tried to turn the winding crown, but it wouldn't budge. It was like the whole watch was frozen in time exactly at five minutes to seven.

“This has to be it,” Malcolm mumbled to himself. Popping the back of the watch held as many answers as the front had--none. He was not exactly an expert on the matter, but all that he was seeing looked like normal parts in a watch. He stuffed it inside his own pocket for safekeeping. Edrisa was standing to the side, watching his actions carefully as she nibbled on her thumbnail. “Look, Edrisa...about the party-”

A loud blast cut through his words, shaking everything not nailed to the floor. Malcolm reached out to steady Edrisa, only for her to pull away.

“Was that a frigging _bomb_?” Lucas, white as a sheet, shrieked. He had managed to slide all the way to the floor, sitting against the wall, hugging his knees. It was an okay position if he was inside a crashing plane, but not exactly the best option for their current predicament. “When you said hostiles, you meant terrorists, didn't ya?”

Malcolm was pretty sure that the locked door had just met its doom, which meant that they had less than two minutes before they got some unwanted company. “Edrisa, hide this the best way you can,” the profiler asked, placing the pocket watch in her hands. “Lucas, let’s find a way out of this place, okay?”

 _'Out of this place'_ seemed to be the magic words that made Lucas spring to action. “There's a window in the storage room that goes into the underground parking,” he pointed out. “I think we can fit!”

“Show me!” Malcolm urged him, taking a look at the door. Already he could hear heavy footsteps. Even if they managed to fit through that window, there wouldn't be enough time for the three of them to get out. 

Casting one last look at the medical examiner, Malcolm caught her moving to the table where the body Lucas had been working laid open. Without pause or hesitation, she stuffed her hand holding the watch inside the corpse's chest cavity. When she took it out, the watch was gone. Malcolm couldn't help but smile in approval, happy to see that the petite woman was still able to use her head despite the fear. Most people had a certain aversion to sticking their hands inside dead bodies, so the watch would be safer there than inside a bolted vault. “Edrisa, let's go!”

By the time the three of them reached the storage room, they already could hear voices in the lab next door. Time was running out fast.

And so was hope as Malcolm looked at the window. Lucas was right, someone could fit through there, but it had to be someone under the age of five. The window was too small. “Shit!”

Lucas was staring at the window like it had betrayed him. “I thought it was bigger...” he whispered. “We're screwed, aren't we?”

Malcolm raised one finger to his lips, silently pointing at the closed wooden door, the only thing between them and the armed men outside. Maybe if they stayed really, really quiet, the perps wouldn't even bother to search that tiny room.

And maybe fairies were real.

The door shattered under the force of someone's kick, splinters flying everywhere as the lock simply burst free from the wall like it were made of glass. Malcolm tensed, his hand shaking against his leg.

He was ready to face whoever stepped through that door. What scared him was the fact that there was little he could do to protect either himself or the two civilians with him.

Edrisa wasn't even supposed to be here! She should be safe, in her house, hosting a murder-party.

Not being part of one.

  
  


**EDRISA-** **_40 hours before (6 PM)_ **

Edrisa had been more than happy to change into a clean pair of scrubs and toss her soggy pants in a bag. She didn’t care if people were going to stare at her in the subway; she was going to wear those green pants home.

Her bags filled with snacks and candy were stuffed inside her office. The expiration date on most of that stuff seemed to have the end of the world in mind, so she figured it could stay there safely to be consumed whenever the need arose. People outside of their line of work wouldn’t believe the appetite one could work up after performing an autopsy.

Despite the madness that seemed to have taken over the city that day, things were quiet in the morgue. Lucas had been actually happy to see her, not because of the work overload, but because it was deadly quiet down there.

Edrisa kind of liked it that way. 

Mário Berganno, the perp who had been shot dead by Dani the day before, was waiting for her autopsy, as a special request from Gil. The dead man was supposed to wait in the freezer until she came back the next day, but since she was there...

As she slipped on her gloves, the last thing Edrisa was expecting to hear was Malcolm’s voice coming from the other room.

Figuring it _had_ to be someone else with a very similar voice, she opened the door to check. “Bright! What are you doing here? Weren't you supposed to be at the dentist?”

As the words came out of her mouth, the medical examiner realized it had been an excuse. She could see the guilt in his face, but his guilt was over the fact that he had been caught, not that he had lied to her.

It hurt. She wasn’t going to fool herself. They were all adults, supposedly mature enough to admit the truth when invited for something that they did not wish to attend. Instead, he had convinced her that he was looking forward to the party and had come up with a last minute excuse to bail out.

And now here he was looking all flustered and...worried. Why was Bright looking so worried?

“Edrisa...what the hell are you doing here?” he had the audacity of asking, like it was any of his concern. “Never mind,” he was quick to add, dismissing the matter altogether. “Where is the Berganno body?”

Edrisa looked at him, surprised. Why the sudden interest in the dead man from the warehouse? “In the next room,” she pointed out, barely meeting his eyes, arms crossed in front of her chest to show him that she was the one in charge there. It was petty, but it was about the only thing she had going for her. “Does Gil know you're here? Or did you lie to him too?”

He winced at her words, making her feel just a little bit better.

Of course, all of the arguments she had ready inside her head, were blown to pieces as soon as the words ‘armed hostiles’ were pronounced. 

It sounded like something straight from one of those tacky action movies that her father loved to watch. Any minute, Edrisa expected Arnold Schwarzenegger or Bruce Willis to walk through the door, telling them to follow them if they wanted to live.

Instead, there were bombs going off and she was stuffing pocket watches inside a dead man’s chest--ah! Her life had turned into a pirates’ movie!- and she was more scared than she had ever been in her entire life.

  
  


**GIL-** **_40 hours before (6 PM)_ **

There were voices coming from the cellblock floor. People working at the precinct had taken to calling it ‘cell block’ but it was actually just two holding cells that could fit around five people each, and that were barely ever occupied by suspects spending the night, waiting for appeals. 

Gil could recognize at least one of the voices as belonging to officer Spencer, who was a part of the NYPD Gospel choir and had quite the set of lungs on her. The things she was yelling at their capturers were _creative_ enough to bring a smile to his lips even under the circumstances. Definitely not the choir’s acceptable brand of material.

“Shut the fuck up, bitch! Or I’ll make you shut up,” a man’s voice yelled back, his words punctuated by the rap of metal on metal.

Knowing the exact layout of the place, Gil moved as close as he dared to the corridor that led to the cells, crouched down close to the floor and used his phone camera to film what was going on around the corner. Fortunately for him, the place wasn’t the tidiest in the world, so he had plenty of cover from the overfilled trash can and the piles of files that really _shouldn’t_ be sitting on the floor like that.

“This man needs medical attention,” Spencer insisted, clearly not impressed by the man’s show of power. “It’s bad enough that you’re incurring in an act of terrorism,” she added. “You sure you wanna add murder to that?”

A shot echoed in the tight space, making it sound like a small bomb going off. Someone screamed in pain, impossible to tell if it was a man or a woman. It didn't matter; Gil’s fingers almost let the phone slip away, eager to exchange the piece of technology for the piece inside his gun holster.

These were his people that those cronies were hurting, _killing_! He was desperate to do something.

A small voice inside his head, the one that sounded so much like Jackie that it made his chest hurt, pointed out that all he had was a puny little Taurus and a lot of gumption, and neither were a match for military grade semi automatic weapons. All he would achieve was a large stain on the wall, roughly in the shape of his brains.

“Keep talking, lady...let’s see how many more of you ducks I can shoot!” the man growled, a hint of sadism in his voice. It was clear that whatever crimes he might be charged with, were the least of his concerns.

Thirty seconds was more than enough to get a layout of place, and not willing to test his luck, Gil pulled the phone away, going up one floor so that he could check his footage. Making sure that he had the sound off, the lieutenant played it back, eagerly. The camera had caught two men dressed as police officers just like the ones he had seen before, each carrying what looked like a couple of Sig Saeurs, standing watch over the two cells. Gil had estimated that at least twenty five people had been working there that day. From the looks of those overcrowded cells, most of them seemed to be there. The shot he had heard, it seemed, had hit someone’s foot. Painful, but not life threatening at least.

Still, Gil couldn’t just walk away and leave his people there, condemning at least one to die from lack of assistance.

What he needed was a plan.

  
  


**DANI-** **_40 hours before (6 PM)_ **

Dani could see the moment when Nic lost her patience and decided to make her move. She wanted to scream at the other woman to wait a few more minutes, to think things through and not rush headfirst into a dangerous situation, but even if there wasn’t a gag inside her mouth, she knew that Nic would not listen.

Two of the guys were still busy inside, lost from view as they searched the shelves at the back. Of the two remaining men, one was busy on his walkie talkie, speaking in hushed tones in a language that she swore sounded Russian. The other man, however, was watching them both closely.

The sound of an explosion sounded through the floor, coming from below. It was all the distraction Nic needed to make her move.

Jumping from the floor like a cat on springs, the woman attacked the man closest to them, taking him by surprise with a well placed blow to the neck, quickly followed by a bone crushing kick to his groin. He fell to his knees with a yelp, red in the face, his weapon dropping to the floor.

The guy on the walkie fumbled with too many things on his hands, wasting precious seconds that allowed Nic to pick up the fallen weapon and shoot.

The man fell down with a gurgling sound escaping his lips as the bullet made a mess of his throat.

Dani stared in awe at how surprisingly well that had gone. The ropes finally untangled from her feet, she grabbed the second weapon, barely wasting a second to look at the dying man on the ground. There were two more guys inside the lock up and no telling how many others the sound of that gun had drawn to them.

The two inside the locker decided to take no risks, firing at them from behind the cover of the metal shelves.

Dani and Nic took cover behind the counter, wishing it was metal instead of wood. They could hear it splintering under the onslaught of bullets coming from the other side. 

Nic looked longingly at the flight of stairs. It was just two steps away, but out in the open without cover, it might as well be a mile away. Unless they took out those two men, they were trapped.

“I’ll draw their fire, you take them down,” Nic whispered to her, stealing a kiss from Dani’s lips.

Before Powell could voice her protest, the other woman was already on her feet, shooting wildly. 

Wasting no time, Dani stood up as well, placing two quick shots, one to the right and one to the left. The detective gasped as something hot and sharp cut through the edge of her arm. Like a furious bee set on fire, stinging everything in its path. Despite knowing exactly what it was, it still surprised her to look down and see the dark red stain changing her shirt’s color through the hole in her jacket. She loved that jacket!

“You got one of them!” Nic let out, adrenaline making her eyes shine brightly and her cheeks look flustered. “Shit! Did they hit you?” she asked, finally spotting the blood on Dani’s arm.

“Just a graze,” Dani reassured her. It sounded like such a cheesy, stupid line when she heard it in movies and TV shows, but now that she was in the heat of the moment, she could barely feel it. Later, the detective was pretty sure it was going to hurt like a bitch, but right now she was high on adrenaline and nothing could slow her down. “My turn,” she said with a playful wink before getting up.

Nic cursed out loud but fortunately wasted no time. She got up almost at the same time, finding her target in one shot. 

She turned to Dani with a victorious smile. They had done it!

Dani smiled back. She had never felt that alive, knowing that the odds had been so bad against the two of them and yet there they were, alive.

Neither of them heard the steps coming down the stairs in the deafening silence that followed the gunshots exchange.

They barely heard the single gunshot that broke the moment.

All Dani heard was Nic’s surprised gasp as she fell against her. 

**JT-** **_40 hours before (6 PM)_ **

JT had called dispatch on his way to the precinct. Finally having someone pick up his call felt a bit like confirmation that he wasn’t insane and that his phone was not broken.

Dispatch was a bit overwhelmed with the number of calls being received all over the city, the multiple bomb threats causing havoc with their usually less chaotic system. Still, no one could tell him when it was the last time that someone had reached out from the 16th, or if any of their call ins had been answered from inside the precinct.

Sitting in his car from a distance, the police station looked like it should. Except for the fact that he had been there for the last five minutes and no one had come in or out of the front door.

In a place packed with smokers in constant denial, that was about as normal as a polar bear wearing a bikini in a resort.

JT looked at his phone, hoping that someone would have returned his calls by then. The only message on screen was to tell him that he had no service. That close to the station, it could not be a coincidence.

The detective leaned over, opening his glove compartment. There was a pair of binoculars somewhere in there from his last stakeout. Doing stakeouts of any duration with Bright usually involved awkward conversations and sweets. Lots of sweets. Pushing away the wall of empty candy wrappers that Malcolm had managed to stuff inside the small compartment, JT finally managed to wrap his fingers around the binoculars.

Most of the windows on the precinct were tinted and decorated with metal bars. Still, there was one single window on the second floor that had normal glass. Behind that window was the main break room, where at all times of the day you could find at least one person sipping coffee.

There was no one in there. No movement whatsoever, like they had all decided to abandon the precinct at the same time.

Whatever wisps of doubt he had before, vanished from JT’s mind. He picked up the police radio and called dispatch again. “This detective JT Tarmel,” he identified himself. “Requesting SWAT team intervention on a possi- _probable_ hostage situation at the 16th precinct.”

Despite the emotionlessness of his words, JT’s mouth was dry as a desert, his heart pounding hard against his ears.

“ _Can you confirm that location, Detective Tarmel?_ ”

“16th precinct,” he repeated. “I believe it has been taken over by hostiles.”


	6. 39 hours and a 1/2 before (6:30 PM)

**MALCOLM-** **_39 hours and a 1/2 before (6:30 PM)_ **

Two guys stepped in, holding semi automatics in their hands. They were both dressed in police uniforms, but it was plain to see that they did not belong to the force. “What the hell are you doing here? Get your hands up where I can see them!” one of them demanded, looking at them like Malcolm and the others were the actual invaders.

Only when he looked closely at the man asking the question and recognized him did Malcolm realize that the perp actually meant the question. The profiler knew him, had crossed paths with him a number of times. That guy was actually a real cop, working at the precinct. Vinnie-no Vince _Something_.

The moment Malcolm realized that, he knew they were all dead. There was no way Vince was going to let them escape and testify that he was involved. “Why are you here, Vince? What do you want?”

The other man looked at Vince with a snarl, his gun pointing straight at the profiler. There was a scar across his right eye, making the lid drop a bit. Made it look like he was permanently winking. “You know this _pezzo di merda_?”

Beside him, Malcolm heard Edrisa gasp, thinking as he did that the guy was going to shoot him, point blank, right there and then.

“He was in the raid yesterday,” Vince informed. “He might know where the damn thing is!”

The other guy's eyes focused on Malcolm's face, measuring him up. “He the one who snuffed Mário?” he asked, taking a step closer. The muzzle of his gun touched Malcolm's neck, pressing against his windpipe. “You got a gun on you, _stronzo_? Hand it over now and I won’t make you swallow it later.”

“No gun,” Malcolm admitted. Scar-lid wasn't taking his word for it, though, making sure that his searching fingers left bruises behind. The profiler barely reacted, even as the man shoved him against the broken door, pulling his jacket and sweater up to search his back for a weapon. “It wasn't me,” Malcolm pointed out faintly, his mouth pressed against the wood. “It wasn't me who killed him, I mean.”

“Let him go...he's not even really a cop,” Vince explained. “He consults with the lieutenant's team...just a civilian, like those two,” he said, pointing at the two doctors.

“Fine,” Scar-lid snarled, finally convinced that Malcolm had no weapon on him. “Outside, all of you!”

Doing his best to fix his clothes, Malcolm stepped out of the storage room ahead of Edrisa and Lucas. While Vince and Scar-lid had been bad enough, he realized that their situation was much worse than he had originally thought. Inside the morgue, there were five more guys, all carrying the same type of weapons as the other two. And they were all currently busy trashing every single corner of the morgue. “Hey! They have Mário over there, all opened up like a gutted fish!” one let out. He sounded more amused than offended.

Beside him, Malcolm felt more than saw Edrisa take a step forward, ready to defend her territory. Small and fragile as she looked, Malcolm had learned that she was fierce when it came to the things she loved. And she loved her work. He shook his head, silently asking her to stand down.

She cringed, watching as all the drawers were thrown open one by one, the sliding gurneys pulled out, mindless of having a body inside or not. If the drawer happened to contain a body, one of the men pulled out the sheet covering it, gave it a cursory inspection with a deeply disgusted look on his face before looking at Scar-lid, shaking his face.

“It isn't here,” one of the men, older looking, concluded. His words came laced with a thick Russian accent. “You sure this Mário fella had it on him when he died?”

Malcolm exchanged a look with Edrisa. On the table where they had left the rest of the Mário's belongings, nothing had been touched. They knew exactly what they were looking for.

“The guy never left it out of his sight, not even for showering,” Vince pointed out. “Of course, he had it with him.”

“It ain't here,” another said with a shrug. “And it ain't at the evidence locker. Where is it then?”

All eyes turned towards Malcolm and the others. Edrisa was breathing hard, puffs of hot air brushing gently against his neck. On the other side, Lucas let out a low whimper.

Scar-lid scratched his nose, carefully setting his gun on the table currently occupied with a corpse. “Seems to me that there are only three people in this room who could have taken it from Mário's dead body,” he started, thinking out loud. “And I'm sure one of them will be kind enough to let us know...” he went on, slipping beside Lucas, “...where the _fuck it is_!” he finished, yelling the last words on the man's ear.

Lucas closed his eyes, leaning ever so slightly against Malcolm. His legs were shaking so hard that the profiler was pretty sure the medical examiner was in serious danger of passing out.

The distinct sound of a switchblade flicking open filled the silent room.

“Look, we have no idea what you guys are looking for-” Malcolm started, his sentence ending in a gasp as something hard collided with the back of his head. The world lost all color for a second or two.

**GIL-** **_39 hours and a 1/2 before (6:30 PM)_ **

The explosion rocked the walls of the precinct, or at least it felt that way where he was leaning against one. For a moment, Gil was certain that it had been the explosives he had seen them place on the front door. Maybe someone had tried to get in and accidentally detonated them.

However, if that had been the case, Gil would have been screwed because the two perps would surely run out to see what had happened and find him hiding just around the corner. The corridor where he stood was the only way in and out of the floor, except for the elevator, so there was no way to miss him. 

But those two didn’t bulge. The perps’ lack of reaction to the blast did not bode well for his precinct, because somewhere in the building, they had just blown something up, on purpose. 

The lieutenant quietly retreated, until he reached the steps. He had an idea, something so crazy that Gil started to wonder if perhaps he wasn’t spending too much time with Malcolm.

But the truth was, he needed to be in two places at the same time for his plan to work, and this was the only way he could think of.

A while back, Dani had convinced him to download something on his phone that allowed him to dictate his reports straight into file. After playing a bit with it, Gil figured out that it worked the other way around just as well.

He quickly typed a sentence on the phone and placed it by the vent that connected the two corridors. If the sound was loud enough, it would seem like it was coming from the end of the corridor where the cells were located.

Gil’s hands were sweating by the time he opened the vent protection, placed the phone inside and hit play.

Inside his head, he was counting. There was a twenty second delay from the starting point to the actual text. As his count hit nineteen, the lieutenant was positioned at the start of the corridor, just around the corner of the cells.

“ _This is lieutenant Gil Arroyo of the NYPD...you are surrounded. Lay down your weapons and surrender._ ”

Anyone who had heard his voice even once knew that Gil sounded nothing like that. The voice was male, but that was where any human similarity ended.

However, those guys had no idea what he sounded like. All that matter was passing on the idea that they were, in fact about to be cornered. Initially, the men had looked right at the place where Gil stood hidden, as it was the only access to the cells. But as the voice went on, coming from the wall, it was easy to see doubt flourishing on their minds, wondering what hidden passage might be concealed there.

In case of doubt, the rule seemed to be fire. Both men grabbed their automatic weapons and released a volley into the solid wall like they were trying to scrape its paint out the hard way.

Taking advantage of the fact that they were now both facing away from him and deaf to all else over the sound of their own guns, Gil made his move. They had been warned about police presence, so the lieutenant had no qualms about shooting them in the back. He hit one in the right shoulder and the other in the leg. 

The man hit in the shoulder dropped his weapon on the spot, screaming in pain as he grabbed his bleeding arm. The other one, fell to one knee, howling, the gun still in his hands.

“Drop it!” Gil ordered, his gun leveled with the man’s chest. “NOW!”

The man looked up at him. For a fleeting moment, the lieutenant thought he might be dealing with a fanatic willing enough to die for his cause. The moment passed, though, no one daring to even breathe. The man closed his eyes with a groan before tossing the weapon away and sitting on the floor, pressing both hands against his bleeding leg.

“Face down on the floor, the both of you!”

Hissing in pain and complaining about police brutality, the men complied slowly and reluctantly. 

“The keys! Now!”

There was a moment of brief hesitation before the one with the shoulder wound moved his left arm to his pocket. “Slowly,” Gil warned him, watching his every move. The keys clattered against the floor as the man took them out and tossed them in Gil's direction. The lieutenant kicked them towards the cells, knowing his people would take it from there.

Officer Spencer was one of the first out.

“Any serious injuries?” the lieutenant asked her. Once most of the crowd had exited the small cell, he could see that at least one man was down.

“Detective Fonseca thinks he’s missing a toe...and Officer Reynolds was shot in the abdomen, sir,” the woman replied. Her hands were covered in blood, most of which seemed to belong to her fallen colleague. “It’s bad,” she whispered.

Gil ran a hand through his hair, only then realizing that it was soaking wet. From the looks of the men and women around him, all of them knew that Reynolds wasn’t gonna make it unless he got immediate medical attention.

The problem was they were all trapped in there until that whole ‘foothold’ situation had been dealt with. Whatever help Reynolds was going to get, for now, had to be found inside the precinct. As far as Gil remembered, Steve Mayers was on duty at the morgue, but he wasn’t sure how much the medical examiner knew about dealing with living patients.

“Who’s working evidence today?” he asked out loud. He couldn’t be sure, but he was almost sure that it would be-

“Santa’s on duty, sir!”

Gil smiled. Nichole Portman was a remarkable officer...and she was also finishing her medical degree. Between a man who only dealt with corpses and an almost doctor, the lieutenant's choice seemed pretty easy. “Help them as best as you can...I’m gonna go find Santa!”

In the middle of one truly fucked up day, the words didn’t even sound strange as he said them.

  
  


**EDRISA-** **_39 hours and a 1/2 before (6:30 PM)_ **

Edrisa couldn't scream. The sound was trapped inside, glued to the walls of her throat and she couldn't get it out.

This couldn't be happening.

Her eyes kept glancing at the corpse where she had hidden the watch. Sweat ran down her back as she saw the big, scary guy -the one with the scar because they all looked big and scary- set his gun right beside the dead man. If he had looked closely at the corpse's chest, he could have probably spotted the edge of the plastic wrap around the watch.

But he hadn't looked. His attention was on poor Lucas.

Lucas was a nervous man by nature. Sweet as a cake, but handling stress under duress was not his strongest suit. The bad guy, unfortunately, had noticed that pretty fast too.

For a split second, Edrisa thought about telling where the watch was, save themselves the trouble of being questioned by those guys. Lord...she hated torture in the movies! She couldn't stand if they started pulling nails out of them!

Scar guy yelled at Lucas, and she jumped in the air. Her heart was racing out of control, so loud that she could barely hear if Lucas had said anything in reply. He hadn't even been in the room when Edrisa hid the watch inside the corpse! How could he tell them where it was?

She, on the other hand, could. But what would they do to them after they had what they wanted?

None of them had their faces covered. Which usually meant that they were not afraid of being identified in a line-up later. Because dead people don't point fingers, right?

Edrisa had pondered how she would like to die. It wasn't even a morbid line of thought, given what she did for a living. Up until a few months back, she figured she wanted to go like a woman who had ended up in her table, killed in her sleep by a burst brain aneurysm. She hadn't felt a thing. Just went to sleep one night and never woke up again.

Strangely enough, her opinion on the matter had changed of late. Lately, Edrisa had begun to wonder what it would be like to die for another, as a hero.

Maybe it was just a sign of getting older, wanting to leave her mark on the world or something like that. Dr. Lewis from the 15th precinct had gotten himself a Maserati when he turned fifty. She wanted to die a hero. Potato, Pota _to_.

Or maybe it was the effect of being in the general orbit of Malcolm Bright.

Speaking of which, Malcolm's obvious lie wasn't all that welcome by Scar guy. It wasn't even worth the try, as he ended up on his knees, gasping, eyes glazed over like the room was spinning around just for him. Which it probably was.

Edrisa resisted the urge to move to his aid. She could see the trail of blood where the hit had broken skin at the back of his head. An occipital hit like that would surely mess up his eyesight, even if only for a moment. She just hoped that it hadn't been hard enough to cause a concussion. She couldn't fathom what she would do in that situation with only Lucas to help her.

“I don't appreciate being treated as an idiot,” the guy who had hit Malcolm explained, like that made everything okay. “Now, we can do this the easy way,” he went on, kicking Malcolm in the back, effectively sending him tumbling down, curled in a fetal position.”...or we can do this the hard way,” he finished, grabbing Lucas by the collar of his shirt. He pulled the smaller man towards him until their chests were touching.

Edrisa heard Lucas gasp, trying to squirm away from the man's hold. Looking closely, she could see the tip of the switchblade Scar face had been brandishing about, pressed between Lucas's legs.

Sweet as a cake, but complete crumble under pressure.

“I have no idea where the damn watch is!” Lucas screamed out. “I never touched it!”

“Shut the hell up, Lucas!” Malcolm shouted from the floor, all too late.

Scar guy let Lucas go, watching with a truly disgusting smile as the man fell down next to the profiler.

“Never said it was a watch, did I?” he whispered, crouching down to look a terrified Lucas in the eye. “You know what, little lamb?” he said, rising to his feet, storing the blade away. “I believe you.”

The shot echoed inside the closed space like thunder, bouncing off walls, trying to find a way out. Edrisa screamed, not quite believing her eyes as Lucas fell down to the floor, bonelessly. A puddle of dark blood quickly spread from underneath his fallen body, like a red blanket unfolding.

This time she couldn't help herself. She fell down on her knees, sliding next to her unmoving colleague. Before anyone could stop her, Edrisa stuck two fingers under Lucas' neck, searching for a pulse.

There was nothing there. _Nothing_. “You killed him...” she whispered. Saying the words out loud was useless in stopping the feeling of disbelief and numbness that was taking over her whole body. Lucas was dead. “You didn’t have to kill him! Why did you do that?”

She needed to understand. There had to be a reason why a life had just been snuffed out, like blowing out a candle after the lights come back on. Lucas was brilliant at what he did, and he was a sweet man who brought donuts to work whenever they had weekend shifts. He and his girlfriend had been planning their wedding for months now...someone needed to tell his fiancé that the wedding was off...

The man raised an eyebrow at her, amused by the reaction. “Now, since Mr. Jittery over there,” he said, pointing to the dead coroner, “knew nothing useful about the whereabouts of our missing property, that means that one of you two does,” Scar-guy explained, going about his business like nothing had happened. “I’ll give you a hint: whoever knows and speaks up, gets to live a few more minutes as a bonus!”

Edrisa’s numbed brain clicked into action microseconds before she could open her mouth. She looked at Malcolm. He was on his knees, staring at Lucas’ corpse. If she spoke, the profiler would be dead too.

“Go screw yourself,” Malcolm hissed in defiance, looking straight up at the guy. He struggled to his feet, holding onto his bruised side. “Kill either of us, and you’ll never find the watch!”

Edrisa shrunk back at the angry look Scar-guy gave Bright. Had it been her on the other end of that gaze, she was pretty sure she would have peed her pants.

“We’ll see about that,” the man voiced, a hint of annoyance in his tone. He gave a sharp nod to someone behind them.

Before she knew what was going on, Edrisa felt her feet lose all contact with the floor, as two guys lifted her up in the air like she weighed nothing. Their hands were wrapped too tightly around her shoulder joints, straining the connection between bones in ways that were not meant to happen. She was sure that, just a tiny hint more of pressure and both her arms would snap.

Despite managing to keep quiet, Edrisa was pretty sure that the pain she was feeling had translated crystal clear in her expression, because over the thundering sound of her galloping heart, she could hear Malcolm screaming for them to let her go.

She managed to look at the profiler, finding him in a similar position. The two guys holding him had Japanese features. She felt betrayed by her mother’s heritage.

“So, this is how we’re gonna play this game,” Scar-guy slithered, like a snake rounding its prey. “You talk, no one gets hurt,” he pointed out, nearing Edrisa. “You don’t talk…”

He didn’t even finish his sentence. He just turned around to where Malcolm stood trapped between the two guys and fired.

Edrisa howled, pulling at the hands holding her back. Scar man was blocking her view of the profiler. She hadn’t heard him scream, she hadn’t heard his body fall, but that didn’t mean that he was still alive.

Scar-guy was looking at her, clearly expecting an answer from her.

“Don’t-say- _a-word_!”

The words were strained, like they had fought their way out of the profiler’s lips, but it was definitely his voice. A wave of relief washed over the medical examiner, thinking that the guy had been bluffing or simply missed his shot. The wave came crashing down against the shore as Scar-guy moved away and she finally caught a glimpse of Bright.

He was slumped against the two goons holding him, a red stain blossoming from his left thigh down. There was no arterial spray that she could see, but the blood had reached his knee already. Malcolm’s face was white, his teeth clenched tightly against the pain.

“You know what?” said the older guy, Russian-looking, as he closed in on Malcolm. He grabbed his hair, pulling the profiler’s head back. “I am sick and tired of listening to you talk,” he added, stuffing a handful of gauze inside his mouth. “Now, sweetie,” he went on, turning his attention to her. “My Italian friend is passionate about his work and very eager to fill you boyfriend with lead.”

Edrisa whimpered. More than anything, she wanted her brain to provide her with a witty reply, something funny and incredibly brave that she could throw back at these guys, especially at the condescending asshole currently addressing her. But Edrisa was terrified of doing the wrong thing and what consequences that it could bring to Bright. 

She was pretty sure that, the second she told them where the watch was, both of them would be joining poor Lucas on the floor. But if she kept quiet, Malcolm would still pay the price for her silence.

At first, when Scar-guy had started talking, Edrisa had trembled in fear, thinking that they were going to hurt them in turns, until one of them talked. This...this was so much worse.

Across the room, Malcolm managed to capture her gaze. Apparently, he had reached the same conclusion as she had. Hell, knowing Bright, he had manipulated the bad guys into doing exactly this, so that she wouldn’t be harmed.

Those blue eyes were fixed on her, trying to convey his blessing. Edrisa almost screamed at him, like she wanted to do when he showed up in the morgue after _lying_ to her that he had a dentist appointment. 

She had been so angry at him, feeling betrayed and mocked. Now, none of that mattered, because they were both going to die in that morgue. And what was worse, she would get the front row seat to Bright’s death.

“Silence?” Scar-guy said. “Fine.”

The gun exploded into action again. This time, Malcolm couldn’t scream, not with his mouth filled with gauze, but the guttural sound that vibrated through his throat was more bone chilling than any scream could have been.

Edrisa closed her eyes, feeling a steady stream of wetness course down her cheeks. She couldn’t look at him. She didn’t dare.

  
  


**DANI-** **_39 hours and a 1/2 before (6:30 PM)_ **

Dani closed her eyes against the hot spray that was misted in her direction. Her brain refused to make the association between the thick drops in her face and the coppery smell that filled all of her senses. She could _taste_ the smell in her mouth.

Nic looked as surprised as her. One of the young woman’s eyes was nothing but a pinprick of black in a sea of deep blue, while the other had turned almost black. Like the lights had been turned off on that side.

For a brief moment, sound stopped existing. The air froze around the two of them, and there was no one else there. 

Dani was pretty sure that the men were screaming at her, menacing words and promises of violence. But the detective wasn’t listening.

She was lost in Nic’s eyes, a whole life that could have been for the two of them flashing between one blink and the next.

When time resumed its normal pacing, Powell found herself whipping her gun from the floor and aiming it at the source of the commotion.

There were two men, also dressed in police uniforms, coming down the steps, automatic weapons aimed at her. With nowhere to hide, Dani was a sitting duck, Nic’s body draped over her lap. Without pausing to think, she raised her gun and fired.

If she was going down, she was going down fighting. 

Her bullet hit the wall, the men scurrying to hide behind it. One of them snuck his weapon around the curb and started firing blindly, causing a hail of bullets to ricochet against the wall inches above her head.

Self preservation finally kicking in, the detective gently laid Nic’s dead body on the floor and raced into evidence lock up. The shelves didn’t offer much protection, but they were better than standing in the open.

“No point in hiding, bitch!” one of them called out, sounding cockier than his cautious moves spoke of. “You’re outnumbered and with no place to run...surrender and we won’t put a bullet between your eyes like your pretty friend over here!”

Dani bit into her lower lip. It was easy to stop the tears from falling when pure rage was feeding her every move. Quietening her breathing, the detective scrunched low and risked a look towards the door. She could see the tip of one of the men’s heads searching for her. Pushing herself into the open, Dani opened fire as she raced the space between shelves, not daring to stop and see if her bullet had hit its target.

The sound of a heavy body dropping down was the only answer she needed to know that her aim had been true. One down, one more to go.

Leaning down against the metal shelf, Dani’s arm chose that exact moment to flare out in pain. She had all but forgotten about the bullet wound, until the wound itself made it impossible to ignore. 

She closed her eyes as waves of pain pulsated up and down her arm. Her fingers were shaking, the gun rattling in the palm of her hand. 

Bullets danced above her head, metal hitting metal in a shower of tiny sparks. The detective hissed in pain, using her other arm to protect her head.

The last guy wasn’t fooling around, trying to search for her. He seemed to have decided to just shoot up the whole place and wait for a stray bullet to find her.

It wasn’t an entirely bad plan.

All Dani could do was hunch low and wait for a miracle. The sound of bullets was deafening inside the large, echoing room. When they finally stopped, Dani could still hear them inside her head.

Barely daring to breathe, Dani took a look. She figured the man’s clip had reached its end. If she could reach him before he slipped in the next one, she had a chance.

She spotted him near the door. All she could see was a hand holding a gun, but it was more than enough for her.

He would step inside any second now. Dani carefully aimed her weapon, took a deep breath, and counted.

One.

The man had, had more than enough time to reload his weapon. And yet, he wasn’t firing. He was moving carefully, his head slowly becoming visible around the bend of the wall.

Two.

All the perps had been using semi-automatics. The hand she had glimpse was holding a handgun. She could see his salt and pepper hair. One well placed bullet and this would all be over.

Three.

“This is Lieutenant Arroyo! Stand down, whoever you are!”

Dani’s finger convulsed around the trigger, as one part of her brain, still stuck in fighting mode, urged her to squeeze, while the rest of her recognized Gil’s voice and pulled away.

“Gil!” it came out as a whisper, a prayer, a gasp of breath. She had been so close to shooting him!

“Dani?”

She had no idea how he had moved so fast, but suddenly the lieutenant was kneeling down next to her, his hands holding her shoulders. She felt like it was the only thing keeping her upright. “You okay, Powell?”

“No,” she whispered, finally allowing the tears to fall down.

**JT-** **_39 hours and a 1/2 before (6:30 PM)_ **

“What do we know?”

The question was from Captain Waters, the leader of the strike team. They had arrived in record time, two black vans parked out of sight from the precinct. JT had worked with Waters and his team before. They were professional, efficient and half of them were former military, just like the detective.

Which was why he knew that no one would mock him when he said ‘Not much’. All JT really had was a partial distress message from Dani, too many unanswered calls, and a locked door.

Fortunately for him, that was enough for the other man. “I don’t see anyone guarding the door,” Waters pointed out, lowering his high def goggles. “Which means it’s probably boobytrapped.”

JT nodded. He assumed as much. He had spent his time watching the front door like a hawk. There was a tiny slip of space between the end of the door and the floor, a souvenir from the days when that street flooded every other week. People tended to pace when they stood in the same place for too long; if there had been anyone behind that door, JT would have seen shadows moving about.

There had been none.

“Any way to get in without making a fuss?”

JT had been pondering that as well. “The roof,” he informed. “The building to the right is slightly taller than the precinct; we can rappel in.”

Waters gave him a look. “ _We_?”

“I know the layout of the place,” Tarmel pointed out, ignoring the schematics of the precinct that Waters was already holding. It was a feeble excuse, but JT needed to get inside that building. There was a vice wrapped around his heart, and the detective knew that the only way to loosen it up was to get inside and help.

The older man looked closely at the detective, probably pondering whether to kick him out of the van or not. “Your feelings stay at the door. You hear me, Tarmel?” Waters finally said, pushing a vest towards the detective.

JT couldn’t help but smile. “Loud and clear, sir,” he said, resisting the urge to salute the man.

It was mesmerizing to see how well the team was organized. While a group of ten moved to the next building to get inside the precinct through the roof, the rest stayed in the van. The last time JT looked at the precinct’s door, he could see a small machine on wheels making its way silently to the front steps and easily climbing them.

They were ready to rappel down when Waters got the confirmation that there were explosives attached to the lock. They would have to go in and disarm it from inside.

There was no one guarding the roof. JT supposed it was a matter of overconfidence, as the perps believed that no one knew what was going on inside.

They encountered little resistance on the top floors, the place all but empty. JT kept looking around, eyes searching for red stains, some kind of evidence that he wasn’t crazy, and that there was truly an invading force inside the police station.

They met the first perp on the ground level. He was dressed in a police uniform but his face was unfamiliar. Looking at the detective for confirmation that the man was indeed an intruder, Waters signaled for one of his men to take him out.

With weapons armed with powerful silencers, the only thing they heard was a low grade _wzzzh_ before the perp dropped down. They caught him before his body could hit the floor, keeping their advance quiet.

“Be advised...perps are in police uniforms,” he said quietly over comms. “I repeat, perps are wearing police uniforms.” Waters looked directly at JT, nodding towards the dead man. He had Asian features and a couple of tattoos peeking from underneath his rolled-up sleeves. “Know him?”

JT shook his head in negative. As far as he could tell, that man wasn’t related to any of their recent cases. And he was definitely not a cop.“Any ID?” he asked, despite knowing the answer already.

“Nada,” said the officer patting the dead man down. “Got a walkie talkie here,” he announced, giving it to Waters.

“Can you crack the frequency on this?” the man asked the comm in his ear.

“ _Can a chicken cross the road?_ ” someone answered from the other side.

Waters rolled his eyes. JT looked away with a smirk. It looked like Waters had a Bright on his team as well. “Is that a yes, Maltez?”

“ _Already done,_ ” Maltez answered from the van. “ _I read sixteen devices at the same frequency inside the precinct. There’s a cluster of them on the bottom floor._ ”

Waters looked at Tarmel again. 

“Morgue,” the detective supplied.

Waters nodded. “Price, Lourence...get that front door operational and safe,” he ordered. “The rest of you, let’s sweep the lower floors. I want that morgue under control in five!”


	7. 39 hours before (7 PM)

**MALCOLM-** **_39 hours before (7 PM)_ **

Malcolm was in a world of pain. The first gunshot had been nothing but a graze, carefully aimed at his leg to make him hurt but without putting his life at immediate risk. The guy using him for target practice was clearly an excellent shooter. That, or this was not the first time he’d played this sick game.

The profiler had always admired Edrisa’s tenacity and attention to detail in her work. Now he was adding courage and bravery to that list. She had quickly caught on to the fact that their lives depended solemnly on their usefulness to these guys. The moment they had what they so desperately needed, they would simply dispose of any loose ends.

The moment Lucas had told him he knew nothing, he had become expendable.

As the second bullet hit him just inches below the first one, Malcolm couldn’t keep his pain inside any longer. His body tried to voice his agony, despite the fact that he could make no sounds with his mouth. The broken scream scratched the side of his throat, tearing at his skin, trying to escape through his pores.

The world greyed out for a few moments, the profiler only realizing that the wounded animal sound was coming from him. He immediately felt guilty for voicing his pain. It did nothing for the two bullet holes in his leg and it only added to Edrisa’s torment. He could see the tears running down her face and wanted nothing more than to comfort her, but the wad of gauze inside his mouth barely allowed him to breathe, much less talk.

Their whole survival depended on the petite woman keeping her mind calm and her mouth shut. Robbed of his voice, the profiler had to trust Edrisa to do the right thing, even if that meant standing there, watching him slowly bleed to death.

Helpless to do anything about Edrisa, Malcolm focused on their attackers instead. Initially, he had thought this to be an Italian mob operation. After all, Mário had worked for them, and both Vince and Scar-lid were of Italian descent. But then the Russian guy had spoken. And now he had two Asian men--he was pretty sure his legs no longer could carry his weight--holding him upright. Their backs were covered, but Malcolm was certain they both hid the Yakuza tattoos beneath their shirts.

Italian, Russian and Japanese mob. All working together.

It was unheard of, it being pretty much in the same ballpark as sharks and killer whales throwing a surprise party for their dolphin friends.

And yet, here they were. What sort of information could that watch hold that was so important to three different major criminal organizations?

What sort of information would three mob lords place in the hands of a single psychopathic killer?

The only answer that Malcolm kept coming back to was money. A psychopath killed for the pleasure of killing; the fact that these people had been paying Mário handsomely for taking care of their business was merely a formality.

What if that watch contained some information about the mobs’ finances? Perhaps the name of their bookkeepers, or bank accounts-

Malcolm felt the pain on his shoulder before he heard the echoes of the gun going off one more time. He was almost glad Scar-lid hadn’t hit his leg a third time; Malcolm was pretty sure it would have fallen off if he did.

“Hey, asshole! You almost hit me!” the guy on Malcolm’s left yelled, letting go of his arm abruptly.

The profiler fell down like his strings had been cut, unable to hold himself upright without the support. The guy on his right did nothing to stop his descent, more focused on his screaming partner and Scar-lid.

Malcolm clenched his jaw, trying to push the pain back. Something important was happening, and he was missing vital details because his vision kept blinking in and out of existence. Words were being shouted, but everything was reaching him as if Malcolm was underwater.

“Calm down, Bruce Lee,” Scar-lid’s voice filtered through the rushing wind inside Malcolm’s head. “If I wanted to hit you, you would have a new hole in ya right now,  _ capice _ ?”

Malcolm was pretty sure that the words that followed were not English, but it was hard to tell. He leaned his face against the cold floor, thankful for the solid surface underneath him. Everything else was spinning out of control, except for that tiny piece of floor touching his skin.

“Bright! Oh, my God!”

More than her words, it was Edrisa’s panicked tone that managed to reach him through the fog. The touch of her hand against his cheek was as grounding as the floor. She pulled at the gauze inside his mouth, finally allowing him to breathe in. Malcolm licked at his dry lips, his tongue feeling like dry ice, sticking to everything it touched. “I’m okay,” he voiced before his brain could actually connect with his mouth and realize just how bad that sounded.

**EDRISA-** **_39 hours before (7 PM)_ **

When she was a kid, Edrisa had visited her grandparents on her father's side, who lived in a country house in upstate New York. City kid that she had been, Edrisa had decided that it was a good idea to touch the large cocoon-shaped ball that she found next to a tree.

To this day, she would never forget what it sounded like when an entire beehive of angry, flustered bees came streaming out of the hole on top, like bullets from a machine gun. 

The sound of all those men, shouting at each other in the small confines of her lab, reminded Edrisa of that furious beehive.

She raised her hands to her ears to cover some of the sounds, only then realizing that her arms were free. With heated words flying over her head, she fell to her knees, crawling towards Malcolm.

He was lying on his side, his wounded arm trapped between his body and the floor. His eyes were closed, but she could see that he was breathing. Air came out in harsh puffs through his nose, disturbing a piece of gauze that hung free from his mouth.

There was blood everywhere and she no longer could tell which was Malcolm’s and which was Lucas’. “Bright!” she whispered, gently pulling the gauze out of his mouth. It came out wet, spit and blood staining it pink. “Oh, God…”

Malcolm leaned back, taking the pressure off his injured shoulder. He licked at his lips, dry tongue scratching against broken lips like a cat licking through sandpaper. “I’m okay,” he let out.

Edrisa felt like punching him for such an idiotic statement. She laughed instead, because truly, she had kind of run out of tears at that point. “Your eyesight must be very, very poor,” she informed him. She looked at his injuries in despair, hardly knowing where to start.

“Who the fuck let those two get together?”

Suddenly, all eyes were back on them, heated words falling to the ground as the group was reminded of their common goal: the watch.

“You know what?” the man with the Russian accent voiced, pulling out a handgun from the small of his back. He reached for Edrisa’s hair, grabbing a handful before yanking hard enough that her glasses flew from her face to land under the table. Edrisa hissed in pain, her hands uselessly grappling at the vice hold around her hair. She could feel it pull at her scalp as he dragged her away from the profiler. “I’m getting tired of this shit,” he snapped, pointing the gun at the woman’s head. “Tell us where the watch is  _ now _ , or the next bullet goes in her brain!”

The words took their time registering in Edrisa’s mind. Most people spent their entire lives without knowing the exact moment they were going to die. This wasn’t like looking to the side and seeing the speeding car heading your way, or leaning wrong on a balcony and suddenly feeling nothing but empty air beneath you; this was premeditated.

Edrisa had no doubt that the man was going to pull the trigger. These men had shown no hesitation in murdering Lucas or torturing Malcolm. They were desperate, and this was the only way for them to get what they wanted.

“Wait!” Malcolm called out. His voice lacked the strength she was used to, but some of that spark of intelligence had returned to his eyes. “Who should I tell?”

It seemed like an odd question. Edrisa forced herself to take a breath and observed the profiler. Perhaps he wasn’t as with it as she had hoped.

“What the fuck are you talking about,  _ mudak _ ?”

Malcolm tried to push himself up, barely managing to sit up. He was holding his left arm close to his chest, right leg folded underneath him as he stretched the injured left one in front of him. He looked like he should be unconscious, instead, he seemed ready to launch into a lecture. “I mean,” he paused for effect, looking at the men carefully. “Who is in charge here? Do we give the watch to the Italian Cosa Nostra, the Russian Bratva or the Japanese Yakuza?”

Scar-lid laughed. “You’re a funny guy, I’ll give you that,” he pointed out, sounding anything but amused. “You think we’re gonna give you extra points for figuring that out? Start talking, or the gun starts singing!”

Malcolm ignored him, looking at the Asian men instead. “No, but I do know that he’s more invested in getting his revenge on whoever killed Mário Berganno, than on finding the whereabouts of the watch,” the profiler pointed out, nodding towards Scar-lid. “I mean, it’s what a friend would do for another.”

The words hung in the air for a moment. Edrisa tensed, carefully watching as their meaning started to settle over the other men. It was clear that they did not trust one another. In fact, if they truly belonged to different factions as Bright called them, they were more used to killing each other than working together.

“Is that true?” the Russian guy asked above her. She could feel his grip on her hair, easing ever so slightly. “You were friends with the guy? Did he tell you where the money was?”

Edrisa’s ears perked up at that. Of course, this was all about money. She was pretty sure Malcolm had already figured that out before starting to put them one against the other, but she couldn’t help but be impressed by his wits.

“Have you ever met the guy?” Vince offered. “He wasn’t friends with his own mother, much less anyone else,” he pointed out. “That’s  _ why _ the bosses gave him the watch, remember? Because he was a frigging lunatic that talked to no one.”

“Shut up, Vince,” Scar-lid hissed. “I don’t owe these Ruskies nuthin’,” he growled. “If they’re dumb enough to fall for this guy’s bull, then that’s their problem!”

“Perhaps the reason you’re not so interested in the watch is because you already know the location, hm?” the Yakuza guy wondered. He still looked pissed at the close call with the previous bullet.

On the floor, Malcolm gave out a belly laugh.

Edrisa looked at him worried, thinking that he was stroking out or something. But the profiler looked genuinely amused by the mobsters’ conversation. “You guys lost it, didn’t you?”

The Yakuza man kicked at him, effectively breaking up the laugh. Malcolm groaned as he lost the battle with gravity again. Still, pressed against the floor, his lips curled in a smile, revealing blood-slicked teeth. “All three mobs’ putting their money together...and no one knows where it is!”

“That’s it, I’m gonna kill this guy!” Scar-lid said, picking up his gun again.

To Edrisa’s surprise, the other Russian guy stepped in front of the profiler. “Stand down, Mick,” he ordered, his voice deep and commanding. “First, we get the watch.”

Mick’s face flushed with rage that had no place to go other than boiling beneath the surface of his skin. He walked past Malcolm, his gun no longer aiming at him. It didn’t stop him from kicking the profiler’s injured leg.

Edrisa flinched, even though Bright didn’t make a sound. She could see him curl in on himself, his eyes closed. It might have been a trick of the light, but the medical examiner was sure she saw a tear escaping the corner of Malcolm’s eye.

Sweat. She told herself it was sweat. Because to admit it had been a tear meant she had to acknowledge that the profiler was in such a deep state of agony that voicing it no longer sufficed.

In her head, the medical examiner was trying to calculate how much blood someone lost due to one bullet wound, multiply that by three and figure out how much time Malcolm had left. Her math kept coming up with impossible numbers as a result, as in he shouldn’t even be conscious at this point. And yet, he was.

Edrisa closed her eyes. He was enduring all of that brutal, mindless suffering because Bright didn’t want to leave her alone with these men, alone with the decision of whether to give them what they wanted. Even with her eyes closed, Edrisa felt as the gun was raised once again. 

One more bullet inside Malcolm and the medical examiner knew it became a moot point whether or not it was possible for him to survive.

One more bullet and she might as well be the one pulling the trigger that sealed the profiler’s fate. 

“One more chance, missy,” Mick called out to her.

Edrisa opened her eyes to find the tall man on one knee, his fingers curled around Malcolm’s hair as he pulled his lax head up. The other hand was holding his gun, the nuzzle pressed against the profiler’s temple.

“Stop,” she found herself saying. The voice barely seemed like her own, like she was hearing a recording of some long forgotten message she had left for posterity. “Stop,” she begged, fighting tears -sweat- of her own.

“Edrisa...no.”

The words were but a whisper, but still, the small woman could feel them vibrating inside her chest. Malcolm barely had the strength to open his eyes and plead as he had done before. He was ready to die for this.

But she was not. Even though Edrisa knew with a fair amount of certainty that the day would end with both of them dead, she couldn’t be the one stealing Malcolm’s last chance.

Sure, there were cases where people survived gunshot wounds to the head, but Malcolm didn’t strike her as being the luckiest person. Besides, his body was already dealing with three other major wounds…

“It’s inside that body,” Edrisa went on, her head nodding towards the man on display on top of the table.

Mick smiled, satisfied that he was finally getting what he wanted. He let go of Malcolm’s hair, allowing the profiler to drop to the floor like a punching bag deflated leaking sand. “Get it out,” he ordered her.

Taking a deep breath, Edrisa moved forward. Her legs were shaking, and her hands were so cold she could barely feel them. There was blood underneath her fingernails and all she could think of was how unsanitary it was going to be to stick those dirty fingers inside a corpse to remove the bag containing the watch.

Silly, really. It wasn’t like the dead man was going to catch an infection or that she would be around to deal with the mess on her fingers. Turning her brain off, since it was doing her no good, the medical examiner reached inside the corpse’s chest cavity and pulled the bag from where she had hidden it between the fifth and sixth rib. It came out surprisingly free of fluids but with a distinct smell of decay. Through the transparent evidence bag, it was easy to see the contents.

“Finally! The fucking watch!” Mick let out, snatching the item from her cold fingers. 

Edrisa had no time to complain. Her breath froze inside her chest as she saw the man take one step away, raise his hand up to aim at her face and pull the trigger.

  
  


**GIL-** **_39 hours before (7 PM)_ **

There was no point in checking Nichole for a pulse. The young woman was clearly dead. 

Gil sighed. Any life lost under his watch was his burden to carry, but it always hurt a little bit more when it was someone so young, with such a bright future ahead.

He closed the dead woman’s eyes before taking out his jacket and draping it over her still form.

Dani hadn’t said anything else after he had found her. As far as he could see, the detective had no life-threatening injuries, but she was far from okay. “We need to join the others on the floor above,” Gil whispered.

They had been lucky so far, as no one else had come down the steps to investigate. Sooner or later, they were going to run out of luck, and Gil was down to four bullets. Not exactly the best of odds.

“Are there anymore-” Dani asked, visibly trying to pull herself together. Still, her voice broke as she glanced at the covered body. “Was anyone else hurt?”

It was one of the things that Gil most admired about her and, at the same time, made him fear for the young woman’s state of mind. Once Powell got her head in the job, she pushed everything else back, ignoring it for as long as she could. This whole situation, however, was not something the lieutenant wanted festering inside Dani’s head. “One of the officers they locked up was shot badly,” Gil let her know. “I came here hoping that-” he stopped, looking at Nic. “We need to find a way out of here.”

Dani knelt beside one the dead men. From the anger plastered all over her face, Gil could assume with some degree of certainty that it was the same man who had shot Nic. “Who are these guys? What the hell are they looking for?”

The lieutenant shrugged. “No idea,” he confessed. In fact, he was hoping that Dani would have more information than he, since she had been there longer, but that didn’t seem to be the case. “All I know is that they are well armed and very organized.”

The detective paused, looking back at the chaotic scene that used to be the evidence lock up. “They were looking for the stuff we brought back from the warehouse yesterday,” she let out, getting up to look closely at the debris on the floor. “Whatever it was they were looking for, they were frustrated about not finding it here.”

Like her, Gil looked at the boxes and papers scattered across the floor, as if the thing the perps had been looking for would magically materialize in front of them. “Any idea what?”

Dani shook her head, her curls bouncing around. It hit him only then that the detective was wearing makeup and that, despite the pants and jacket she normally wore to work, there was a silver blouse peeking from underneath. She had been on a date.

The lieutenant looked back at the body of the young woman covered by his jacket. There had been some rumors going around that Dani was dating someone inside the precinct--and by rumors, he meant a betting pool--but so far, no winners. Bottom line was, it was no one’s business, but he really, really hoped that it hadn’t been the murdered young officer because that would break Dani’s heart.

  
  


**MALCOLM-** **_39 hours before (7 PM)_ **

Malcolm flinched at the sound of the gun going off. Despite the agony engulfing his body like burning fire, the sound didn’t bring any new source of pain.

Mick was laughing, ordering the others to grab their things and leave. It took the profiler a minute to realize what that meant. Opening his eyes was easy. Managing to focus on anything was the hard part. 

Everything was too bright and wavering, like the whole room had been suddenly tossed underwater. Then he saw Edrisa. “No…”

It was more of an exhale of angst than an actual word. Breathing out his pain, his deep sense of utter failure.

The medical examiner’s body seemed to be miles away from him, her eyes opened, staring at him. Bright almost gagged as he caught sight of the wound in her forehead. The shot he had heard but not felt...had found a different target.

Malcolm had long stopped feeling his left hand, but he reached out with his right. The medical examiner’s hand was so close, their fingers were almost touching.

“Edrisa…”

She blinked, her mouth opening to speak, even though no sound came out.

Malcolm dragged himself across the floor, narrowing the distance between them until he could hold her hand. He squeezed as hard as he could, letting her know that he was there, that she was not alone. Her fingers felt cold under his touch.

“Time to die,  _ stronzo _ !”

Mick’s voice grated against Malcolm’s ears, a vile intrusion in a moment that was just his and Edrisa’s, like a car horn in the middle of a peaceful song. He never got a chance to tell her that he was sorry for lying, that no matter how good a reason he had to skip the party, he felt bad for hurting her.

Malcolm looked up. The fluorescent lights blinded him. All he could see was a large silhouette holding a gun, and the pocket watch, dangling from his other hand, glinting as it spun. He made a grab for it with his injured arm, hissing in pain as the movement set the whole limb on fire.

Mick laughed, lowering the watch, dangling it in its chain like a worm on a hook. “This what you want?” he offered mockingly, crouching down. “I got something better for you, you piece of shit!”

The nuzzle of the gun pushed against Malcolm’s lips, forcing its way in and grating against his teeth. The taste of metal in his mouth made the profiler gag. He could have pushed the gun away with his one working limb, but Bright refused to let go of Edrisa’s hand.

“You were right, you know?” Mick whispered into his ear. “About Mário and me...say hello to him for me.” 

The profiler closed his eyes. He had run out of time.

  
  


**JT-** **_39 hours before (7 PM)_ **

JT wasn’t one to break police protocol, especially when those same protocols were in place to protect them and avoid mistakes. But as he heard the shot just around the corner, the detective couldn’t stop himself. He ran.

All the hurt and suffering, every single life lost while he wasn’t there, those were almost too easy to forgive himself because there was nothing he could have done.

This...this however was different. A shot had just been fired less than two feet from where he stood and there was no way in hell that he wasn’t going to do everything within his power to help whoever was inside that morgue.

He could hear voices, all male, talking at the same time. They seemed happy about something. It wasn’t hard to figure that the room was filled with unfriendlies.

Taking a quick peek over the window glass on the door, JT could count at least five men, all armed, all looking at something on the floor.

The leader of the attack team joined him silently, giving JT a disapproving look that communicated more than any lengthy reprimand would have. The detective didn’t care. A shot had been fired, and since he couldn’t see any familiar face standing with the perps, that meant someone who worked there was down. Hurt...if not worse.

Having met with the group in the cells, they had already been given proof that this group had no qualms about pulling the trigger. Inside his chest, JT felt like there was a clock, ticking, ticking, ticking away as someone bled just beyond his reach.

The team leader was also doing a countdown of his own, three fingers raised in the air. By the time the last one bent down, the team had stormed through the door.

They were well trained, this was what they did for a living. JT didn’t have to fire a single shot, even though he wanted nothing more than to empty his clip on these guys.

The perps didn’t get a chance to fire either. Caught by surprise, they barely had time to raise their guns before the smoke grenade went off. After that, it was like shooting fish in a barrel.

It was over in less than a minute.

JT pulled off his mask, racing from body to body. In between the perps, the victims and the dead people who had been in the morgue in the first place, the whole room seemed like something straight out of a horror movie. Ignoring the naked ones, as he assumed those had been dead before that whole mess had begun, the detective rushed to the closest body wearing a white coat with a tight knot on his throat. It was a young man.

He didn’t know his name, but what mattered at that moment was finding a beating pulse in his neck. JT pulled out his gloves and pressed two fingers against the medical examiner’s neck. Even before he registered the lack of a beating heart, JT already knew the man was dead.

Sighing in despair, he turned to the other. JT gasped out loud as he caught the scene in front of him.

Once, a long time ago, when he was still dating Tally, she had dragged him to a play.  _ Romeo and Juliet _ . She thought it was romantic, he thought it had the most convoluted lines he had ever heard in his life and would have been completely lost if he hadn’t known the story already.

However, there had been this one scene at the end that had stuck in his mind for a long time after seeing that play; the two lovers, lying on the stage floor, their unmoving bodies surrounded by red rose petals.

For some reason, this reminded him of that.

Only, instead of romantic, it was gruesome and instead of petals, there was blood everywhere.

Edrisa had fallen on her back, her eyes partially open. Half her face was covered in blood, the source being easily spotted on the hole marring her forehead. Her right arm was bent in an awkward position, her hand trapped between the fingers of the second person lying next to her. 

It was jarring to realize that the person holding hands with her was actually Bright. 

Malcolm was covered in red, like he had decided to dress in one color alone on some crazy dare. It was pooled under the two of them, impossible to tell where one started and the other ended.

JT deemed himself as someone quick to act and of never losing his cool. He lost it then.

He could not move. The mere idea of checking either of them for a beating heart sat uneasily at the bottom of his chest. He couldn’t bear the thought of touching them and finding nothing. “We need a medic down here!” he found himself shouting.

For a moment, the detective wasn’t entirely sure where he was. All he could smell was cordite and copper and he was sure he could feel sand under his boots. The sound of a helicopter flying low almost made him hit the ground with his hands over his helmet.

“Stand down, soldier,” a voice spoke quietly next to him. “We’ll take it from here.”

JT gasped. He was shaking all over. The strike team leader was standing in front of him, an all too understanding look upon his face. There were no helicopters or sand.

Just a room filled with death.

“I need to help them,” the detective found himself pleading. “They’re my friends.”

The other man nodded. “I understand, but what they need now is medical attention...which isn’t your field,” he explained. “Come, we need to secure these motherfuckers who’re still breathing.”

JT closed his eyes. He knew the man was right, but he couldn’t stop himself from looking back at the tragic image Edrisa and Malcolm painted on the blood covered floor. He and Tally had joked about it once, saying that the smart move would be to ask Malcolm Bright to be their son’s godfather, because the kid would always be secure where it came to money.

Looking at the way the profiler had used the last of his strength to hold Edrisa’s hand in what might have been her final moments, JT felt ashamed of making that joke. Bright would have made a good godfather for his son, even if he didn’t have a penny to his name. 

With a feeling of cold detachment, the detective watched as several teams of paramedics started pooling into the room. He could see two of them hastily cutting away clothes on both the medical examiner and the profiler. They wouldn’t be doing that if they were dead, a small functioning part of JT’s brain informed him. It was a good sign. Busy paramedics around them was proof of life. Of hope.

From the corner of his eye, the detective could see one of the perps paying the same amount of attention to Malcolm and Edrisa as he was. He was certain that it was for very different reasons.

“Admiring your handiwork, asshole?”

The man looked up at him with a snarl. His hands were in cuffs in his lap, in attention to the hasty bandage around his upper arm. There was a nasty scar over his right eye that made him look like he was winking at JT. “Just making sure,” he let out, snarl turning into a smirk. “You guys stole away my chance to blow his brains out too.”

JT could feel his blood boiling. “Making sure that you’ll never see the light of day again?” 

“ _ Making sure that _ the  _ figlio di puttana _ isn’t breathing anymore,” he let out, leaning back against the wall. “You don’t know who I work for, copper...I’ll be out in time to attend their funerals!”

The urge to put a bullet between the man’s eyes was greater than JT would admit. Had he been alone in that morgue, he wasn’t completely sure he would have been able to resist. As it was, the crunching sound his fist made as it landed on the perp’s nose was satisfying enough.

“You broke my nose,  _ stronzo _ ! I’m gonna kill you!”

“Everything okay, officer?” one of the strike team men called out, carefully watching the scene.

“Yeah, just lost my balance there,” JT offered.

The other man nodded, perfectly aware of what had just happened. “The floor sure is slippery...better watch your steps, officer.”

JT nodded. He could see Malcolm and Edrisa being loaded into gurneys and moved to follow them. As long as they had a friend watching over them, they wouldn’t dare die.

  
  


**DANI-** **_38 hours before (8 PM)_ **

Dani was walking in a daze. Everywhere she looked, it didn’t seem like the same precinct where she had worked for years. It was a battlefield, an unfriendly and chaotic place, filled with death, danger and doubt.

It felt like a lifetime ago that she had walked through those doors, her main concern being of meeting someone, on her way to grab Nic for a date. If only she had come sooner, or later; if she had waited in the bullpen or outside the precinct...it was maddening trying to imagine all the possible outcomes. It was painful to imagine how many of those outcomes would have left Nic alive.

There seemed to be two different groups of people milling about: the ones who had survived and didn’t quite believe they were alive to tell the tale and those who had arrived afterward, to help. 

Gil’s attention had swiftly been caught by the SWAT team members that had taken over the precinct. They were still sweeping the place, treating it like hostile territory, carefully identifying everyone as they joined the main group on the ground floor. 

In the sea of black body armor and dark blue uniforms, Dani spotted a Hawaiian shirt that stood out like a sore thumb amidst the rest. At first she thought that perhaps a civilian had been caught in this mess, a thought that made her panic as she considered how many casualties they could be dealing with.

Took her a second to realize that the Hawaiian shirt was partially covered by a SWAT body vest and that the head attached to the whole strange ensemble was very familiar.

JT was talking to Gil on the other side of the precinct, looking as gloomy and shell shocked as the rest of them. She savored and stored the image of the detective’s poor choice in fashion for later, knowing that her heart was too heavy right now to fully appreciate the sight.

There was a line of perps against the wall, their asses parked on the hard floor. There were more than she had expected, all of them dressed in the same uniforms as the real cops. Suddenly, she felt an urgent need to strip every single one of them of those clothes, feeling violated by the perps' audacity of using the police uniform to attack a precinct.  _ Her _ precinct.

The procession of gurneys that started making its way out of the elevator and up the stairs pushed all thoughts of avenging their bruised honor out of the detective’s mind. So far, she had been solely mourning her personal loss, thinking of each and every way she could have made sure that Nic stayed alive.

Seeing how many had been hurt, Dani realized that she had a lot more to fear and mourn. As both Gil and JT were on her emergency contacts, the detective realized with a hint of guilt that the two men were only there because she had sent her distress call.

Had she not sent that call, both of them would be safe in their houses. JT in particular, who was about to become a father, shouldn’t be risking his life like that...had something happened to either of them, Dani wouldn’t have been able to live with herself. To look Tally in the eyes ever again.

She was about to make her way across the crowd to talk to them when she spotted the people being taken to the ambulances waiting outside.

Dani did a double take. She was pretty sure that she had just seen Edrisa being carried out, unconscious and surrounded by medical equipment. What was the medical examiner doing inside the precinct on her big party day?

The fact that the next gurney that passed contained the very familiar figure of their team’s profiler was less of a surprise. In a world that seemed turned upside down, Dani was pretty sure that the one constant was Malcolm being where he shouldn’t be.

And getting hurt while he was at it. Suddenly, Dani’s heart was weary for a whole new set of reasons. Both of them had looked more dead than alive, her only assurance that they were still breathing being the notion that they had not been put inside body bags. She bit on her nail, tasting the residual blood and gunpowder that coated her fingers.

She couldn’t handle any more loss on that day. Dani was having trouble processing Nic’s death as it was. If they were to lose Edrisa and Malcolm too…

And over what? No one seemed to know what the hell had happened there, how the precinct had been so easily overtaken, where the perps had gotten that many uniforms without raising suspicions, and what the hell they had been looking for.

The answer to how easily and where they had gotten the uniforms suddenly materialized in front of her as she saw a real cop being carried out with the rest of the injured perps. Vince hadn’t been working there for long, but they had exchanged pleasantries a number of times. He had seemed like a good guy.

How many more of the people she worked with everyday were crooked like Vince? The thought alone made Dani shiver, the possibilities too scary to contemplate. How was she supposed to trust anyone outside her team when there were ‘ _ Vinces _ ’ hiding everywhere in the force?

Looking at the lieutenant’s face, Dani realized that the answer to her question was currently looking straight at her with concern in his eyes. For every  _ Vince _ working in the NYPD, there was at least one  _ Gil _ to counterbalance corruption with ethics and honor. Just as long as that balance was never tipped the wrong way, they could make this work.


	8. Epilogue

**MALCOLM** **_\- 12 PM_ **

Malcolm came to with a gasp. He paused in silence for a moment. He wasn’t exactly sure why, but the profiler felt like there should be pain. And yet, he couldn’t feel anything, other than the tell-tale cotton emptiness to his brain that he had learned to associate with a heavy dose of painkillers.

He was in a hospital. There was no mistaking the disinfectant smell and the annoying, constant beeping in the background as some other place. Any other place.

The only question was, which one? And why?

He was alone in the room, which wasn’t odd in itself. He could hear rain beating against the window, even if the curtains were pulled almost closed, preventing the anemic light that was trying to come in.

Malcolm remembered fluorescent lights. He remembered looking straight up at them, the intensity of the light making his eyes water.

Or maybe he had been crying.

Despite what life had thrown at him, Malcolm wasn’t one to allow tears to fall down all that easily. They weren’t a show of weakness, Gabrielle kept reminding him, but still the profiler held on to his tears like they were in limited supply.

So, why had he been crying?

Looking down at himself brought little more information other than the fact that he was covered in a blue blanket and there was a heavy bandage around his left arm.

As he tried to move his legs to get into a more comfortable position, Malcolm could feel the drag of more bandages scratching against the sheets. Maybe he had been in a car accident?

Or fallen off a building?

His head felt like the only place lacking in bandages, but the drugs were making his thoughts run like heavy as large blocks of cement, dragging across the floor.

“Is anyone there?” he croaked out, words scratching the sides of his throat. He would kill for a drop of water. “Please?”

“Malcolm?”

The injured man frowned. He could hear his mother’s voice, but locating her was proving to be a whole new level of difficulty. “Mom?”

“Oh, sweetie,” Jessica let out with a sigh. 

He realized he didn’t call her _‘mom_ ’ quite as often as he used to when he was younger, and the result ended up being almost always the same breathy voicing of his name. Calling him ‘ _sweetie’_ showed a different level of concern that worried Malcolm.

Before he could ponder much more on why his mother was treating him like a five year old, Malcolm could feel the edge of a straw being pressed against his lips. He opened his mouth willingly, sucking water in like it was the most delicious thing he’d tasted.

“Easy...doctor said smell sips once you woke up,” Jessica said.

“What happened?” he asked, finally spotting his mother on the other side of the room. Why hadn’t it occurred to him to look there instead of just the window? “Where are the others?”

“At the funeral, I suppose,” she let out, sitting back on the chair placed right by the bed.

The word ‘funeral’ was like the popping cork that made all of his memories spill out, sending Malcolm’s heart into a mad sprint. Unfortunately for him, that effect was announced quite loudly by the monitor electrodes glued to his chest, as his heart rate sped up. 

Walking into the precinct with Gil; finding Edrisa working at the morgue; hiding the pocket watch; being tortured by elements of three different crime organizations; standing helpless as Mick aimed his gun at Edrisa and shot her in the head.

Malcolm sunk into the bed, devoid of all will to live. Suddenly it made sense why none of the others was there, why they were all at a funeral. Edrisa Tanaka was dead.

The last thing Malcolm remembered with any amount of clarity was reaching out for Edrisa’s hand, so she would know she wasn’t alone in her final moments. He had looked up at the fluorescent lights and seen Mick, the mobster, standing above him holding the pocket watch and his gun. He had been ready to put a bullet inside Malcolm’s head, just as he had done with Edrisa...so why was Malcolm alive?

He reached up, making sure that there were no bandages around his head. It made no sense and it was making his head hurt to think about it. Malcolm closed his eyes, allowing the tears to fall unchecked.

“Oh, sweetie...no need to cry,” his mother rushed to wipe the salty water running down his cheeks, as if that would erase the pain that had caused them and make everything okay. “Everyone is fine, you don’t need to worry about them...just about yourself, about getting better.”

Malcolm pushed her hands away. How could she be so callous? “What about the ones being buried? They’re not okay!” he hissed, turning his head back to the window.

Her casket was being put to the ground and he couldn’t even be there to pay his respect to her. She had been so brave…

“I wasn’t aware you knew any of the victims,” Jessica said defensively. Her fingers carded through his hair, reminding him of how Mick had grasped his hair to pull him about the room.

Malcolm flinched away.

His mother pulled back, assuming that it had been her words, the ones responsible for his reaction. Even with his head turned, Malcolm could feel her hurting.

“Which one did you know?” she whispered. “Lucas Riopelle?”

Malcolm closed his eyes, remembering the poor young man who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“Reynolds?”

The name told him nothing, but Malcolm assumed that it had been someone working at the precinct, probably one of the officers.

“Or Nichole?”

Malcolm blinked. Not because he recognized the name, but because of the enphase his mother gave those names made him realize she had reached the end of her list. “Three people?” he asked, turning back to look at her as a small glimpse of hope flared inside. It felt wrong to feel hopeful after learning of three lost lives, but he couldn’t really help it. Their family and friends would mourn Lucas, Reynolds and Nichole. “You sure those were the names of every victim from the assault?”

Jessica nodded, pulling out her phone. “Gil sent me the list. He knew you would want to know as soon as you woke up,” she pointed out. 

“What about Edrisa?” Malcolm asked, even though he was pretty certain his mother would know nothing about the medical examiner. He tried to sit up on the bed, only to find that his body lacked the strength to even lift his head from the pillow.

“You need to sit still and take it easy,” Jessica told him, making a fuss of fixing back the pillow and pulling the blanket up to his chin. “Do you even know how long you were in that OR? While the rest of us had to just wait outside, powerless to do anything?”

His mother’s voice broke midway through her words, the rest coming out wet and fragile. “They ran out of stock on your blood type, Malcolm...that’s how much they needed just to keep your heart beating!” she went on, avoiding his gaze. “So, I think we would all appreciate it greatly, if you didn’t completely ruin all the work the surgeons had to do to put you back together.”

Malcolm sobered up at hearing the pain in his mother’s voice. He reached out feebly, taking hold of her hand. “ _All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty together again_.”

Jessica gave him a watered down smile. “That stupid rhyme,” she whispered. ”You refused to eat eggs for over a week!”

The profiler smiled weakly. ”Mom,” he called out, squeezing her hand. It was scary how devoid of strength and energy he was feeling that he barely managed to grasp one of her fingers. “I need to know what happened to Edrisa,” he all but begged. The last image he had of the medical examiner was haunting him every time he closed his eyes, the bullet hole on the left side of her skull and the way her eyes kept trying to focus on his without really seeing anything. “I need to find out if she is alive…”

Jessica looked at him, her lips pursed against each other. He knew he should be asking about his own condition, if there had been any permanent damage, or when he could get out of there. But none of that mattered to him right now.

“Fine,” she said, getting to her feet and grabbing her purse from the floor. “But don’t even try to move until I get back or I’ll find the nastiest looking aide in this place and pay him handsomely to guard you like a hound.” 

Malcolm lost track of time, slipping in and out of consciousness while he waited for his mother to return. There was a churning sensation at the bottom of his stomach that grew and grew until it flourished into a cold sweat that had nothing to do with his physical condition. Why was his mother taking so long to come back?

**GIL** **_\- 1 PM_ **

Gil found Jessica standing outside the hospital’s front door, smoking.

“Look at them,” she pointed out quietly, pulling one last smoke out of her cigarette before crushing it under her high heels shoes. “If smoking is so bad for your health, why am I the only one here smoking who’s not wearing a white coat?”

The lieutenant raised an eyebrow at her off comment. “Because they’re as human as you,” he let out. “And smoking _is_ bad for your health,” he pressed, extending his hand to confiscate her pack. He knew she would buy another eventually, but he would keep on taking them away. It was sort of their unofficial arrangement. “How is he?”

“Confused,” she whispered. “Weak as a kitten...I hate seeing him like this,” the woman confessed. “He was asking about Edrisa.”

Gil sighed, looking away at the parking lot. He could see JT and Dani making their way towards them. “What did you tell him?”

Jessica gave him a look. “Nothing...I just waited for him to fall asleep again,” she confessed. “You know he’ll want to go see her as soon as we tell.”

“I know,” he agreed. 

It was a miracle that the medical examiner was even still alive. That, and a good amount of luck. Because of the difference in height between the petite woman and her shooter, the bullet had merely glanced her brain, traveling across her frontal lobe and exiting just behind her ear.

There had been some minor damage to her brain and swelling but the doctors couldn’t seem able to give a straight answer on whether she was going to pull through or not. 

It wasn’t exactly the kind of news that they could give Malcolm. The kid had arrived at the hospital technically dead. They had barely been able to bring him back before rushing him to the OR with no promises that he wouldn’t leave in a body bag. Those had been eight hours that Gil would not wish on his worst enemy. 

Three bullet wounds and a ruptured spleen. Because the kid never did things halfway. 

No one knew exactly what had happened in that morgue. The perps who had survived were not talking and the only two surviving witnesses were unable to give them their statements on account of being on the brink of death.

Gil, however, could take a good guess.

The watch that Malcolm had been holding in his hand had been labeled as belonging to Mário Berganno. The profiler must have figured out that the watch was the thing that those men had been looking for and decided to protect it at the cost of his own life.

The placement of the bullets in Bright’s body spoke of method and time. Torture. The kid had hidden the watch from the mobsters and kept silent as they slowly filled him up with lead.

These things, however, were not something that he intended to share with Jessica. She was hurting enough already. “I’m going back inside,” she announced, composing her spotless clothes and arming herself with that socialite air that served as her armor. 

“I’ll join you in a minute,” Gil assured her, waiting for his two detectives to arrive.

JT had his arm around Dani as they walked. Despite the fact that she hadn’t said a word, there had been enough cameras in the evidence lock up for Gil to know what had happened there. Dani deserved better than to have her heart broken like that.

“Any news?” Gil called out to them as soon as the detectives were within hearing distance. After the funeral, they had driven by the lab, trying to get any reports coming out while Gil went by Malcolm’s place to fetch some of his things. The kid was in for a long stay at the hospital, there was no need to add ridiculous gowns and scrappy sheets to the list of things that would make him miserable in the near future.

“They have taken the watch apart, but still can’t find anything,” JT informed him. “No micro engravings, no hidden parts that don’t belong there, no James Bond crap that they can find.”

He sounded disappointed at the fact. Already there had been two additional attempts made on the places to where the watch had been moved. As of now, the longer it took them to solve that particular mystery, the more lives were at risk.

Vince, the mobsters inside man, had decided to do the smart thing and talk. Although, it was kind of hard to believe what he was saying, seeing how far fetched it had sounded.

Three large crime organizations trusting their combined funds in the hands of the same man seemed like somewhat of a joke, but Vince swore that, that was exactly what had happened.

With the evolution of technology and the resources available to both national and international law enforcement organizations, crime had decided to go old school and hide all of their cash under one giant mattress. 

The only problem was the fact that the one man who was aware of its location had been shot dead by Dani five days before, sending three mobster bosses into complete panic.

Gil couldn’t even imagine the amount of money that was stored in that one location. 

Now, one pocket watch held the answer, and no one seemed able to crack it. It was almost ironic that the clock was ticking for them to find usable evidence on a broken timepiece.

“What about Bright and Edrisa?” Dani asked.

“He’s awake,” Gil informed, feeling that at this point, no news was good news. “I was on my way up to see them.” 

Edrisa was being kept in a different part of the hospital due to the severity and location of her injury. Walking into a Neurosurgery unit felt a bit like invading Sleeping Beauty’s castle, where all the guests were sleeping deeply and soundly.

Edrisa’s parents had arrived early that morning, driving straight from the airport to the hospital. Gil had been there to greet them and explain what he could. The funeral had been easier to face than the tears in the two elderly parents’ faces.

Now that they had had a few hours to compose themselves and process everything that was going on, Edrisa’s parents looked more serene.

“Mr. Tanaka,” Gil greeted the tall man. “Ma'am,” he added with a nod. It was hard to look at Mrs. Tanaka and not see the spitting image of the medical examiner. They looked the same, apart from the addition of a few more wrinkles and grey hairs. Edrisa’s father, on the other hand, with his pale complexion and white hair that still retained a few golden locks despite his age, had only his dark, mischievous eyes in common with his daughter. “Any news?”

“She’s hanging in there,” the older man said with a sad smile. “Issa was always tenacious about anything she set her mind to,” he offered. “She will conquer this challenge as well.”

Gil nodded, not out of sympathy, but because he recognized the truth in the man’s words. There was a reason why he had fought tooth and nail to get Edrisa assigned to his precinct. She was thorough and passionate about her work like no one he had seen before. Well, like one person he had seen before. In fact, she had reminded him of Malcolm so much that the lieutenant figured he could not go wrong with the petite medical examiner.

He had been right about her then, and Edrisa’s father was right about her now. Despite the fact that she had been shot in the head, the medical examiner had regained consciousness long enough after reaching the ER to ask about Bright. No one had really known whom she was talking about, but as the message was later relayed to the lieutenant, he realized that the profiler and the medical examiner had been together for the last part of the assault on the precinct.

All three of them had been in the morgue, according to JT. Lucas had been killed by a single gunshot, execution style, which meant that he had been used to send a message. A reminder to Malcolm and Edrisa of exactly what would happen to them if they refused to cooperate. Because one -or both- of them had known the location of the pocket watch and bravely kept quiet about it.

There was no telling what would have happened if the perps had gotten their hands on the prize before the SWAT team had arrived. Besides the explosives they had attached to the door, the team had found a bag with enough C4 to blow up the entire building.

Gil shuddered at the thought. Instead of a funeral for three, they could have been facing a massacre of unthinkable proportions where none of them would have survived. It was thanks to Edrisa and Malcolm that they were still alive.

“The doctors say she should wake up as soon as the swelling goes down,” Edrisa’s mother spoke quietly, a shocking contrast to the fast and excitable way her daughter usually spoke. “If -when- that happens, they seemed very confident that she will be okay.”

Despite her words, the older woman didn’t seem as confident as Edrisa’s doctors. She was nervously wringing her hands, dry skin scraping against dry skin. Gil placed his hands over hers, stopping the motion. He could understand her doubts and fears. “Trust them,” he told her. “And trust your daughter. She is one of the bravest women I know.”

**DANI** **_\- 2 PM_ **

Dani looked through the window at the figure on the bed. They wouldn’t allow anyone but close family near Edrisa yet, so she and JT had left Gil with the medical examiner’s parents to check on the profiler instead.

Now that she was there, the detective had no desire to go inside. Malcolm seemed to be sleeping restlessly, limbs flailing left and right. Even unconscious, he was still fighting

She could see the bandages peeking from underneath the sheets. Gil had told her his theories about what had happened, how crucial for their survival Malcolm and Edrisa’s actions had been. Nothing would have changed the fact that Nic was dead, but it was something that Dani had come to accept.

She had talked to JT about what had happened. The fight part, at least. Dani still wasn’t ready to put in an official report that she was inside the precinct on her off time to pick up her girlfriend. It was less than a matter of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’, which she knew Gil cared nothing about, but more about avoiding the sympathetic looks over having lost her lover in such a tragic way. Dani didn’t need their pity.

But she _had_ told JT about what had happened in the lock up. How she and Nic had fought and ultimately lost. Instead of launching into a big speech about how they had done the right thing or that they had been fighting against insurmountable odds or that it had been plain bad luck, JT had simply quoted part of their police oath “ _...that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion..._ ”

Ultimately, Powell knew JT was right. She had been angry at the unfairness of it all, when in the end, she was the one being unfair. Nichole had chosen to be a cop, and it had been her choice to take action against their enemies. That did not make her a victim of the assault, it made her a hero. To fail to admit that was to rob Nic of her choices and brave actions.

“He doesn’t look so hot,” JT let out, looking through the window with concern. “Didn’t the docs say that he was recovering well?” 

Dani wrinkled her nose. Inside the room, Malcolm’s mother also seemed at loss on what to do to keep her son from hurting himself in his sleep. “Those assholes shot him three times,” she pointed out. “There is no ‘ _recovering well_ ’ from that.”

Maybe it was just his night terrors acting up. If there was anyone entitled to having nightmares after something like this, it was Bright.

The door opened with a soft hiss. “Do you mind keeping an eye on him?” Jessica asked, holding the door open behind her. “He’s talking in his sleep, which he always does when he’s running a fever...I’m going to wrangle one of his doctors to come have a look.”

Not waiting for their answer, the older woman walked away, her heels clanking against the linoleum floor like an angry parade of woodpeckers.

Dani exchanged a look with JT before the two of them walked inside the room. There was a distinct smell of disinfectant mixed with sweat filling the room.

In the almost darkness that was inside, the greenish lights coming from the monitors surrounding Malcolm’s bed were doing his complexion no favors.

Powell reached out carefully, laying the back of her hand against the profiler’s forehead. “She’s right,” she whispered. “He’s burning up.”

JT walked closer to the bed, leaning a bit towards Malcolm’s face. “What’s he saying?” he asked Dani, looking confused.

The detective mimicked his position, leaning close enough that she could feel little puffs of air each time Malcolm talked in his sleep.

“Six, eleven, sixty...five...six...eleven, sixtyfi-”

Dani moved away, looking as confused as her partner. “I don’t think it means anything,” she let out. “It’s just random numbers?”

JT, however, looked less convinced of that. “They’re not random...he’s repeating the same three numbers, over and over again. Six, eleven, sixty-five.”

“Maybe it’s his locker number?” Dani ventured, despite knowing that Bright had never actually used his assigned locker. Still, there weren’t that many five digit codes around. If it was a code at all. “Or maybe it’s just the number of times he brushes his teeth...I mean, it could be anything. Who knows?”

“Eleven and sixty five,” JT pointed out. “If it was a code for something, he would say just say one, one,six, five, five...but he’s not.”

Dani squinted. “He’s delirious, talking in his sleep,” she pointed out. Logic was probably not the top priority in the profiler’s mind. Then again, this was Malcolm Bright they were talking about...his brain was probably working through everything that had happened at the precinct and figuring out connections that would take them double the time to reach. “You said he was holding the pocket watch in his hand when you found him?”

JT nodded, looking back at her. His eyes suddenly went wide. “The hands!” he let out. Dani gave him a confused look, since the words hardly made any sense. “Not his! The hands on the clock, they were frozen, stopped at exactly five minutes to seven. Six and eleven!”

Dani frowned. It couldn’t be. Could it? “Six hours and fifty five minutes...but what does that mean?”

JT opened his mouth to speak, closed it again without uttering a single word. Through the window, they could see Jessica dragging behind her an entire squadron of men and women dressed in white coats with stethoscopes hanging from their necks like leashes. The Whitly name and money, it would seem, still had some pull. That, or she had threatened a scandal.

Casting one last look to the man on the bed, Dani made her way out, pulling JT with her. There was nothing they could do for Malcolm now other than sit by his side and worry. Their time would be better spent making sure that the information he had almost died protecting was put to a good use. “Let’s go have another look at that watch.”

**JT-** **_3 PM_ **

Dani pulled out her seatbelt as soon as JT stopped the car, the elastic band zipping up as she let it go to reach for the door handle. 

Instead of copying her actions, the detective sat back, looking at the rain hitting the windshield. His mind had barely been on traffic as they drove from the hospital to the military facility where the watch was currently being kept. If the congregation of mobs was planning on another assault to recover that thing, the NYPD had decided to make things harder this time around.

Instead, his brain had been going around in circles over the numbers that Malcolm had been whispering over and over again. On one hand, Dani’s initial reaction could have been the smart one, and he was just wasting his time over the poor guy’s delirium. But on the other hand…

During his time in the service, JT had grown used to referring to places by their coordinates, rather than civilian names. It hardly made him blink an eye when they were referring to military targets and militia locations in the middle of the desert, but it sounded somewhat odd when they were talking about training facilities on US soil.

JT had come to memorize a few. Like New York City, for example, being 40º41’ North, -74º00’ West. Or that the South Pole was 90º South and the North Pole exactly 90º North.

From that, he could extrapolate just about every other place on Earth. That part JT had no trouble understanding. In the watch, as far as he could tell, the only thing he had was the fifty five minutes on the display but he was missing the degrees. So, where had Bright gotten the sixty five from?

The detective’s gaze fell upon the car dashboard. There were a number of displays with numbers on them, none of them a watch. But all of them with a hand that went from zero up. At an angle. 

JT almost smacked his hand against his forehead. Of course! “Damn…that kid is either a genius or a psychic!” the detective let out in excitement.

“You fell asleep in there or what?” Dani asked, poking her head back inside the car.

JT smiled at her, for the first time in that lousy week feeling like they had the upper hand. “Get in! We don’t need the damn thing...just a photo of the watch’s display and Google Maps!”

  
  


**MALCOLM-** **_72 hours later_ **

“...so, as it turned out, JT cracked the code and figured out the coordinates on the clock. The trick, as it seemed, was the angle of the hours and minutes hands in relation to the horizontal line between nine and three,” Malcolm kept on explaining to his captive audience. On the bed, Edrisa gave no reaction at all as she kept on sleeping. “Sixty five degrees up and sixty five degrees, added to the fifty five minutes and forty five seconds adds up to this very small island on the coast of Baffin Island, right in the middle of Canadian Innuit territory. I would have gone with JT to check it out, but...well,” his voice faded as he pointed at the heavy cast covering half of his left leg as he sat in his wheelchair. “He did promised to take lots of pictures of the whatever he find there...my money is on a mountain of bills big enough to ski!”

The profiler looked at the silent woman, hoping for at least a smile, even though she wasn’t really conscious. The doctors, however, said that she could still hear, that it was only a matter of time before she came back to the land of the living. In the mean time, Edrisa just laid there, still and silent, like she was sleeping.

“I never got to apologize for what happened,” Malcolm went on, his tone growing more serious. “I truly intended to go to your murder party, I hope that you still do it, when you’re better...but I couldn’t tell you the real reason why I wasn’t going...that’s why I lied…”

The clearing throat behind Malcolm was too dramatic to be real. He turned his head, wincing when the movement pulled at the healing gunshot wound on his shoulder. Gil was standing on the door threshold, scowling.

“Why is it that you never manage to stay put where we tell you to _stay put_?”

“I’m still at the hospital,” Malcolm pointed out, showcasing his horrendous gown. The pjs Gil had brought him had been vetoed by the hospital staff, out of sheer spite. Or some other reason.

“But not in your bed...and where the hell did you find a wheelchair? Or managed to get here?”

The profiler had the grace to look embarrassed. “I bribed a guy...not sure he even worked here…”

Gil gave him a look. “You...bribe—Malcolm, up until yesterday you were running a fever high enough to cook an egg!”

“And today I feel fine!”

He did. The arm and the leg were blissfully numb with the painkillers and the fog had finally lifted from his head. Besides... “I needed to see her…”

Gil sigh was long and loud. “This wasn’t your fault,” the older man reminded him.

“Did you know where she would have been if everyone hadn’t bailed out on her party?” the profiler demanded. It was a rhetorical question. They all knew. “We’re the reason why she was at that precinct and not home, safe!”

“Lewis had...a cold.”

Malcolm’s eyes widened as he stared at Gil. Only, the lieutenant hadn’t been the one talking. Looking back at the bed, the profiler could see Edrisa’s lids, struggling to open. Like he had done at the morgue, Malcolm reached out for her hand. Unlike before, it was warm and dry. “What does that mean?” he asked, stumbling between confusion and excitement.

“I was at the precinct…” she explained, squeezing his fingers back. “Because Lewis was sick…”

And just like that, she went back to sleep. Real sleep this time. The kind that normal people wake up from.

With a smile on his face, Malcolm fished out his phone and started googling 'murder parties'...it was time he did some organization of his own!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Time Keeper (ART)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27196786) by [Adrenalineshots](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adrenalineshots/pseuds/Adrenalineshots), [ProcrastinatingSab](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProcrastinatingSab/pseuds/ProcrastinatingSab)




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